


Johnny Tyler

by weezly14



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-26 04:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weezly14/pseuds/weezly14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose lied. It wasn't Jackie. Post-Doomsday AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm probably gonna go back and edit/polish this, but figured I'd post it here as well (also on tumblr). 
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who.

Johnny always knew there was something a bit off. With him, with mum, with everything.

For starters, she named him John but never called him it. No, he was always J, to her at least. Grandma Jackie and Granddad Pete and Uncle Mickey and Uncle Jake all called him Johnny, and that’s who he was, that was his name, but mum only ever called him J. Like John was too hard for her to say—which was stupid because she’d named him, hadn’t she? If it was so bloody difficult to say his name why not have named him something different?

John Peter Smith-Tyler was his full name. All he knew of his dad was he’d taken off, left mum stranded, back before he was born. And that his surname was Smith. Like Uncle Mickey, ‘cept he knew his dad and Uncle Mickey weren’t related. Or the same person. Mum never told him his dad’s first name. He thought maybe it was John. It’d make sense, anyway. Boring name, really. John Smith.

So he was John for some inexplicable reason, probably to do with his dad, Peter for his granddad, Smith definitely for his dad, and Tyler for his mum.

Most called him Johnny, ‘cept his mum, who called him J.

—

He’s never met his dad, never seen so much as a photo, but he assumes he looks like him. Mum’s got blond hair, brown eyes. No freckles. But Johnny? His hair’s brown, sticks up all over the place, like he’s just woken up even when he hasn’t. He’s got brown eyes, too, but they’re different than mum’s, somehow. Darker. And he’s got bits of freckles sprinkled about his face. He’s tall for his age, gangly, pale. He looks in the mirror and sees very little of his mother there. He just sees himself, and, he supposes, his father. Which is unfair on a lot of levels. Mostly for mum, though.

Sometimes he’ll say something, or he’ll grin just so, and mum gets this look in her eyes, and it’s soft and sad. Like she can’t decide if she wants to hug him or cry, or do both all at once. And she’ll sigh and smile a little wider, a little more forced. And his heart’ll hurt, a bit, because mum deserves to be happy, not to have that sad look.

He doesn’t hate his father often, despite his having abandoned them, but in those moments, the moments when he knows he’s so much like him—those are the moments he hates the man whose name he doesn’t know. Whose face he never asked for.

—

Granddad Pete’s sort of rich. He’s got a big house, surrounded by grounds, and when he was little Johnny used to spend all day roaming around, running and climbing and hiding, playing with rocks and sticks and grass, pretending to be a pirate or an alien or whatever.

Grandma Jackie’d scold him for getting his clothes so dirty, for tracking mud into the house and mucking up the nice clean floors, but mum would scoop him up, dirt and all, and hug him close.

“My little adventurer, aren’t you?” she’d say.

And he’d babble on a mile a minute about the games he’d played and the stories he’d made up as she changed him out of his dirty clothes and washed the dirt from his hands and face.

Once he told her he wanted to see the stars.

“But you see the stars every night, J,” she’d said, smoothing down his hair as she tucked him in.

“Really see them, mummy,” he’d explained, exasperated and all of 5 years old. “I want to go to the stars. To space! Can I, mummy, can I go to space and see the stars?”

And she’d got so quiet he thought maybe he said something bad, maybe she was mad at him. She just got that look in her eye—at 5 he’d only barely begun to recognize it—and kissed him on the forehead.

“Spitting image, you are,” she’d said, soft smile on her face.

“Who’s spitting?”

“No one, sweetheart. Just an expression.”

They lived with Granddad Pete and Grandma Jackie until Johnny was 6. And he’d spend hours running around the grounds, dreaming up adventures.

When they got their own house, not far from Granddad and Grandma, mum let him put up glow in the dark stars in his room, up on the ceiling. And every night he’d fall asleep looking up at them, wishing he could see them—really see them. Not realizing how much his father’s son he was.

—

Uncle Mickey and Uncle Jake baby-sit him sometimes when mum works late and doesn’t want Grandma Jackie to know. Johnny’s 7 and mum works late a lot now, and he spends a lot more time with Uncle Mickey and Uncle Jake.

One night Uncle Mickey and Uncle Jake drink quite a bit, and Johnny gets to stay up late reading and drawing at the kitchen table because they forget he’s there. And then Uncle Mickey remembers.

“Mickey the idiot, wasn’t it?” says Uncle Jake with a laugh. Uncle Mickey glares a bit. Johnny laughs.

“Think that’s funny, do you?” he says. Johnny giggles a bit more and nods.

“Swear to God, sometimes, like I’m looking at a clone or something.”

“Who knew Time Lord genes’d be so strong?” Uncle Jake says.

“What’s a Time Lord?” Johnny asks.

“Your dad, that’s what,” Uncle Mickey tells him.

“What?”

“Freckly faced git, he was, and your mum over the moon for him, always,” Uncle Mickey continues. Johnny’s never heard this much about his father, but he worries if he says too much Uncle Mickey will realize what he’s saying and stop.

“Ah, come off it, he was nice enough,” Uncle Jake says.

“Sure he was nice—but big Time Lord brain of his, couldn’t figure it out, could he? No. So here we are. Stuck.”

And now Uncle Mickey looks sad. Uncle Jake starts to comfort him, then sees Johnny watching. And realizes.

“Shit.”

“What?”

“Johnny.”

“What?”

“Ignore us, Johnny, ignore everything we’ve just said,” Uncle Jake tells him.

“But you just said my dad—”

“We said nothing ‘bout your dad, and you’ll tell your mum nothing about this, right? Right. ‘Cause you’re a good lad, aren’t you, Johnny.”

“But what’s a Time Lord?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Uncle Mickey says, and he’s never looked so tired. “It doesn’t matter.” He stands, a little unsteady maybe, and crosses to the kitchen table. He scoops up Johnny, smelling of beer. “Time for bed.”

“But—”

“No buts. Way past your bedtime. Your mum’d kill me if she were here.”

“But she’s not. She’s working,” Johnny says.

“She is.”

“Why’s she working so much, Uncle Mickey?”

He doesn’t answer, just looks at him.

Uncle Mickey tucks him into bed, then. He’s the closest he’s got to a father, Uncle Mickey is. Yet he can’t help himself before the door closes—

“What’d you mean stuck?”

Uncle Mickey doesn’t turn around.

“You said stuck.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

There’s a long pause. Finally:

“Lot of stuff happened wasn’t supposed to. Can’t go back and fix it.”

“Was I supposed to happen?”

Because mum gets that look, smiles that smile sometimes, and he may be 7 but he knows he reminds her of someone else. Someone that makes her sad.

Uncle Mickey turns around.

“You’re the best thing that’s happened here, you understand? Don’t ever think different. You, Johnny Tyler, are what’s kept her going.”

These are the words he plays back in his head as he falls asleep, willing himself to believe them, because so often he fears he is what holds her back.

— 

Mum works at Torchwood, which is this top secret place that Granddad sort of runs. Uncle Mickey and Uncle Jake work there, too, but Johnny’s not allowed to go see them at work because he’s too young (he’s 8, thank you very much, not some baby) and there’s too much that could go wrong if the wrong button or something gets pressed.

Mum starts going on business trips, though, so he stays with Grandma Jackie in the big house. Some nights she lets him camp out outside, fall asleep looking at the stars.

He stares up at the sky and rolls the name around on his tongue. Time Lord. There weren’t any books on Time Lords in the library, he’s checked, and he half thinks Uncle Mickey and Uncle Jake made it up. But he weighs it in his mouth, the name, the title, and it feels right, somehow. Like it fits, only he doesn’t know how or where or what it’s s’posed to, only that it does.

Time Lord.

He looks up at the sky and thinks of his father and traveling through space, and he falls asleep.

—

Mum never dates, though he knows she could. He’s 13 and he sees the way blokes look at her when they’re out, and he wonders why she never does.

Sure, she’ll go down to the pub with Uncle Mickey and Uncle Jake sometimes, with some of the other people she works with. But she never dates, and he doesn’t know why.

Not that he wants a dad or anything. He’s got Uncle Mickey and Uncle Jake, which isn’t the same but it’s enough, mostly. He’s 13 and he doesn’t need a dad. He’s not some baby, after all. He just—

He just wants her to be happy.

And it’s not that she’s unhappy, necessarily. Just that she gets that look sometimes. More often as he gets older, as he does his experiments and reads his physics books at the kitchen table. She’ll get that look and smile that smile that hurts his heart because he wishes he could make her less sad. He knows it’s not his fault. What’d Uncle Mickey say that once? He’s what kept her going, or something.

Still. He heard her crying every so often. Not every night. Not even every week. But every few months or so, he’d get up for a snack in the middle of the night (usually a banana, because those were his favorites) and he’d hear her.

He doesn’t often think of his dad, ‘cept when he looks in a mirror, or his full name gets used, or mum gets that look. He doesn’t often think of him, but as he gets older he starts to get angrier at him. Not so much for leaving them as for leaving her, for making her cry and making her so sad.

Mum never dates, but Johnny wishes she would because maybe then she’d forget his dad. Johnny can’t imagine he was so grand as to deserve the sort of love she has for him, anyway.

— 

When Johnny’s 15 he hears a strange sound, and when he turns around there’s a big blue box that hadn’t been there before, and then a woman with red hair steps out.

“Oh my God,” she says when she sees him, and he doesn’t know why.

Until a man steps out behind her.

Spitting image indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

“Well, let’s see, this here looks like—is it London?” says the man, hands shoved in his coat pockets, looking around. The woman with red hair’s still staring.

“Yeah. It is,” Johnny says.

The man looks at Johnny then, just a passing glance, looks back at the surroundings, and then stops. Johnny can practically see the gears turning in his head as he looks back at him.

“Hello,” Johnny offers, a bit cheekily. The man doesn’t move. Doesn’t do anything.

Until the red-headed woman hits him.

“Ow! What was that—”

“You want to explain something, Doctor?”

“Doctor who?” Johnny asks.

“It’s not—there’s—she said it was-” the man—doctor, whatever—looks at Johnny desperately before walking off, pacing, pulling at his hair a bit, muttering to himself.

“Oh really?” the woman says, hands on her hips. “Because where I’m standing, this kid looks an awful lot like you. You never told me—”

“What’s your mum’s name?” the man asks suddenly. The desperate look’s still there.

“Don’t wanna know my name, even?” Johnny says, because he’s pretty sure he knows who this bloke is, and he doesn’t feel like making things easy for him.

“Sure, yes, yours as well, but your mum.” And the look he’s got in his eyes when he mentions Johnny’s mum—the look that’s there from thinking about who he thinks Johnny’s mum is—Johnny’s pretty positive at this point that this man’s his dad, from the freckles to the hair to the way he paces like Johnny does when he’s anxious, and Johnny may not often hate him but right now he’s feeling a more than a little uncharitable.

“Why should I tell you?”

“It’s important.”

“Important? That’s rich. Walked out on her 15 years ago, but now she’s important to you.”

The woman hits the doctor again.

“Donna!”

“You stupid alien git, you did what?”

“Alien?” Johnny asks, because what? And then he starts to remembers something—a word, a phrase Uncle Mickey let slip all those years ago.

“I didn’t—” the doctor’s saying, but Johnny’s not having it.

“Did so. Unless you’re not him.”

Johnny’s eyes meet his and the air’s suddenly thicker. He knows what he’s asking, and he’s asking it not to be true. Johnny’s not angry anymore. He’s just sad now.

“Her name’s Rose. Rose Tyler.”

The doctor may not actually collapse, but Johnny sees the name hit him, and he may as well have.

“Oh my God,” the woman—Donna, he’d called her—mutters.

The doctor composes himself a bit—which is funny because it’s not like he fell apart or anything, but Johnny can just tell, there’s this nervous sort of energy, there’s this—this something off. He’s not crying, not shouting, not outwardly anything. He’s more composed than most are on their best days, but Johnny knows without knowing how he knows that this doctor’s barely been holding it together. But now he’s seemingly steeled himself for whatever’s going to come next.

“Where is she? Now? Can you—I need to—”

“Hang on, what makes you think I’m telling?”

The doctor starts to say something and then stops.

“What?” Johnny asks angrily. The anger’s back.

“I don’t know your name,” the doctor says softly.

Johnny almost doesn’t tell him, just to be contrary. But there’s something in his eyes, something so damn sad, that he can’t not.

“John.”

The doctor steps toward him, puts his hands on his shoulders, looks him square in the eye. Johnny has to stop himself flinching away.

“John. Please.”

“You’ll only hurt her,” Johnny mumbles, the words out of his mouth before he can think to stop himself, looking down at his scuffed up trainers. Funny, the doctor’s are the same as his.

And suddenly he’s 7 years old again. Suddenly a lifetime’s worth of her sad smiles are flashing in front of his eyes, and he can hear her crying last week.

“You’ve done enough here, doctor,” Johnny says, stepping back. The doctor looks like he might cry. Johnny turns around and leaves them there.

And that’s dirt in his eyes, dammit.

—

Johnny slams into the flat, rubbing his eyes.

“J, sweetheart? Everything okay?” his mum calls from the kitchen.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Dinner’s almost ready,” she tells him.

“I’m not hungry,” he says, heading to his room. He doesn’t slam the door behind him, because she’d notice, but he does throw his backpack down.

Johnny’s having a hard time wrapping his head around it all. All he’d been doing was walking home when suddenly there’s an old police box, and out steps his—

And the woman. Must be his wife. Clearly he hadn’t been all that keen on her finding out about them. Clearly he’d never told her about Johnny.

He wonders if they have kids.

His eyes are stinging again, and of course mum takes that moment to open the door.

“J—”

“What, mum? I’m not hungry. And, knock,” he says, a touch rudely, as he tries to wipe at his eyes so she doesn’t notice. But she does.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” she asks as she sits down next to him.

“Nothing, I just—”

“You can tell me. What’s happened?”

And instead of stopping, that only makes the tears come faster. She holds him to her like she used to when he was little and he’d hurt himself, rocking him back and forth a little, smoothing down his hair—which did nothing to make it lie any flatter—as he cries harder than he’s cried in years.

Because he may be 15, but he’s just met the man he’s fairly certain is his dad, who clearly did not want to meet him, who’d never talked about him apparently, who wanted nothing to do with them before but who’s suddenly fallen from the sky in a blue fucking box (what the hell was that about, anyway?) and back into their lives.

The man who’s the reason his mum’s so damn sad all the time, the reason she can’t look at him without smiling that sad smile, the reason she cries at night. The man whose face he inherited, who took off without a second glance.

Johnny doesn’t know what to do with that. All he knows is he can’t tell her. He won’t let him hurt her again.

“Sorry, I’m just—sorry,” he says, pulling back, wiping at his eyes again.

“J, what’s wrong?” 

“Nothing, I’m just—bit over stressed, I s’ppose. Nothing for you to worry about.”

She doesn’t believe him, but she lets it go. She kisses his forehead like she used to when he was little and wipes at the tears.

“You should get some rest, then. I’ll save dinner for you for later, okay?”

“Thanks, mum.”

She goes to leave his room as he kicks off his shoes and slides under the covers. “I love you, sweetheart. I’m just in the next room if you need anything.”

“I know.”

She smiles softly at him before switching the light off.

He falls asleep with a strange sound he can’t place ringing in his ears, his dad’s voice in his head.

—

When Johnny was little he used to dream about his dad coming back. Johnny never knew what he looked like, definitively, but he always thought he’d recognize him.

He’d dream they were at the park, and his dad would walk up, scoop Johnny off the swing, give his mum a hug and a kiss. He’d dream of walking out of school and his dad standing at the gate with the other parents, waiting for him. He’d dream of the school Christmas show, seeing his dad sitting at the back of the auditorium, watching with a smile.

When Johnny was little he’d dream of his dad coming back, fitting into their lives like he’d never been gone, filling that hole his absence had created that they all pretended wasn’t there. He’d dream of his dad helping him with science fair projects. Of walking to the kitchen to get a glass of milk and seeing his mum and dad sitting on the couch watching TV. Of the three of them walking through the park and his dad grabbing his mum’s hand, just to hold it, for no reason.

When Johnny was little, he wanted all those things so much he didn’t even admit to himself how much he wanted it.

As he got older he stopped dreaming about it, because it seemed less likely, and it was easier not to.

It was always easier to pretend the hole didn’t exist than to wish it would be filled. And wonder if it ever would be.

When Johnny was little he’d dream of his dad coming back, but it was always intentional. It was always his dad coming back because he wanted to. His dad finding them, after having looked. After having tried. 

Maybe that’s what hurt most, about their little meeting earlier.

Johnny’s dream came true. His dad came back. But it was clear it hadn’t been his plan.

It was clear he hadn’t wanted to come back.

— 

He wakes up in the morning to his alarm. His eyes are sore and feel puffy still, but when he looks in the mirror he doesn’t look like he’s been crying, just like he hasn’t slept much.

Mum’s already gone for work, but she’s left him a muffin and a note with a smiley face on it, wishing him a good day.

He’s half a mind to skip school altogether, stay in and watch cartoons or something on the telly with a bowl of cereal, but no. He can’t let on that anything’s the matter. So he dresses for school and grabs his bag and the muffin (banana nut, his favorite—she must’ve made them after he broke down last night) and heads out the door.

He’s halfway there when a voice stops him.

“John!”

Fuck. He keeps walking like he didn’t hear.

“John!”

He’s chasing after him, clearly, and Johnny doesn’t feel like dealing with this right now—or ever, really—but he knows he’s going to have to.

“Johnny.”

“What?” the doctor says.

“It’s Johnny. No one calls me John. ‘Cept Grandma Jackie when she’s angry.”

“Oh, Jackie Tyler. Being on her bad side’s never fun,” he says with a slight grimace.

“Where d’you think you are, her good graces?” The doctor doesn’t respond. “I’ve gotta go,” Johnny says, walking past him.

“Wait, Johnny. I just—I don’t think yesterday went well.”

“You think?”

“I—I’m sorry.” 

That stops him.

“Sorry—for what exactly?” Johnny asks.

“For—” the doctor—and Johnny can’t think of him as anything else, can’t think of him as—as dad—or he’s done for, so he’s—he’s the doctor, he’s Smith, he’s whatever. Not dad, not right now. He can’t right now.

But right now he’s looking at him like he’s searching for something, like he doesn’t know what to say not because he doesn’t know but because he’s not sure what Johnny knows. Like he’s not sure what he can say.

“I need to talk to your mum,” he says finally.

“No,” Johnny replies, shaking his head. “Nope. You’re not going near her, not until you say why you’re here, and how you’re here, and why now.”

“Johnny, it’s complicated.”

“No shit it’s complicated! But you left her, and now you’re back, and you think I’m just gonna let you waltz in—especially when you’ve got another wife and don’t even seem that keen on being here in the first place? No. You don’t want to be here, you don’t want to see us, so I’m not telling you where she is. You wanted to know where she is, you shouldn’t’ve gone.”

Johnny’s walking off again when the doctor speaks again.

“What exactly has she told you?”

“What’s it matter?”

“John.”

Johnny stops. Sighs.

“Not much. Just that you’d gone, before I was born.”

“That’s it?”

Johnny nods. The doctor nods, too, starts pacing again.

“I—I don’t know what to say to you,” he admits. “I don’t know where to start, where I can start. If she didn’t—I don’t want to—”

“Where’s you wife?”

“What?”

“Your wife. The ginger woman.”

“Donna?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s not my wife.”

“No? Then who’s she?”

“My friend.”

“Why are you here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do you want to see my mum so bad? Now?”

“I’ve wanted to see your mum for years,” he says, and Johnny’s got no reason to believe it’s true—all evidence says he’s full of it—but for some reason he does.

“She’s at work right now,” Johnny says. “And her work’s important so you can’t just go barging in on her, yeah?” The doctor nods. “I’ve got school, but this is my usual route. If you’re here on my way back—”

And suddenly the doctor’s hugging him, and part of him wants to flinch away but the other part of him lets it happen, lets himself be hugged by this doctor, by his—

But he can’t go there or he’ll not make it through school. He just closes his eyes and sort of hugs him back, and doesn’t think about how different it’d’ve been had this man been around for his whole life. If this man had been the one to chase away the monsters under the bed.

“Thank you,” he says, and Johnny doesn’t trust himself to speak.

The doctor pulls away, wipes at his eyes, and Johnny rubs at his as well. It’s just dust, is all. Bit of dust in his eye.

“Have a—have a good day,” the doctor says.

“Yeah, you as well.”

“Want me to walk with you?”

“Think I’m all right.”

“Because I can. Make sure you get there safe.”

“I’ll be safe on my own.”

“Okay.”

The doctor shoves his hands in his coat pockets, looks down at his trainers. Johnny offers him a small smile he doesn’t catch before walking away.

The part of him that’s still young and hopeful wants to take it back, say yes, you can walk me to school, if only so he’s waiting at the gate at the end of the day.

—

Several hours later, Johnny’s walking out of school when he sees him across the street, hands in his coat pockets, waiting.

He’s not sure what the doctor’s doing, coming back in their lives, but he knows in that moment that his mum’s not the only one he’s protecting.


	3. Chapter 3

“So, um. How was school?”

“Fine.”

“Good, that’s good.”

The air’s thick, and Johnny’s heart hurts a bit, because he’s trying, the doctor, he really is trying. Every few seconds Johnny can feel him glance over before looking away again quickly.

“How—how old are you?”

And that stings a bit, but Johnny answers like it doesn’t. “Just turned 15,” he says. The doctor takes in a sharp breath at that.

“15. Wow, that’s—time flies, doesn’t it? 15.”

“What’s your name?” Johnny asks after a pause. The doctor doesn’t answer right away. “It’s just—I don’t know what to call you.”

“You could call me d—” He stops himself. “Doctor. Just the Doctor.”

“What are you a doctor of, then?”

“This and that.”

“That why you left?”

The Doctor’s looking straight ahead now, won’t meet Johnny’s gaze anymore. “Yes and no.”

It’s like pulling teeth, talking to this man.

“Where’s Donna?”

“Oh, she’s around. Exploring.”

“You didn’t tell her about us.” It’s not a question. “Me and mum.”

“Your mum she knew about. Before.”

“And me?”

And dammit he hadn’t meant to sound so young. The Doctor looks at him, then. He’s got that look again, like he’s not sure what he can say.

“Nevermind,” Johnny says. This time he’s the one to look away.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor says. Whatever it’s worth, he sounds like he means it.

They walk in silence the rest of the way. By the time they reach it Johnny’s ready to call it all off, say nevermind, fuck off. It’s less anger and more fear. Once the door opens there’s no going back.

But the Doctor seems to sense it, their proximity, and he speeds up slightly, and there’s a nervous energy to him again, and maybe Johnny wants to hope for the best.

He thinks of saying something to him before opening the door but he can’t think of anything so he just takes a deep breath and walks inside.

“Mum, I’m home,” he calls. “Where are you?”

“I’m in the kitchen,” she responds. He feels the Doctor react to her voice. “How d’you feel about take-out, I’m not in the mood to cook tonight,” she continues, walking into the living room with a stack of menus.

“That’s fine,” he says, and that’s when she looks up and sees him.

“Rose Tyler,” he breathes.

“Doctor.”

The Doctor smiles a tad at that.

“J, that’s this?” She’s not looking at him, though, she’s still looking at the Doctor like maybe if she looks away he’ll vanish. Johnny supposes he can’t blame her.

“Ran into him yesterday on my way home.”

“But you said—”

“I know,” the Doctor says.

“I thought—”

“So did I.”

Johnny may as well not even be in the room.

“Then how—”

“No idea. Stepped out of the TARDIS and there he was.”

She moves closer to them, stopping just short of the Doctor. “Are you really here?” she asks, reaching up to touch him but not.

“I’m really here.”

Her hand brushes against his cheek then, and she lets out a little sound. Might be amazement, might be the start of tears. They smile at each other—real, full smiles—for the first time since they saw each other.

“Doctor.”

“Rose.”

And she reaches for him and he pulls her in and they’re hugging and she might be crying and Johnny’s not sure what to make of it. This is not the reaction he’d been expecting. Tears, sure. But yelling, he’d braced himself for. Arguing. Some sort of, where’ve you been the past 15 years? This—this is not that. this is not how you greet the man who walked out on you.

“Hang on,” Johnny says, and the Doctor loosens his grip slightly as his mum pulls back a bit. “What going on? Shouldn’t you be angry with him?”

She looks down at that.

“Rose?”

She pulls away completely. The Doctor looks like he wants to reach out after her but is stopping himself.

She puts her arm around Johnny, smoothes his hair. “Doctor, this is my son,” she says.

“Just yours?” he asks.

“I told you there were gonna be five of us.”

“I remember,” he says. They’re having a conversation or something with their eyes, Johnny’s sure of it, and it still doesn’t make sense, but at least she’s not crying—anymore.

“You called him John?”

“Well, I couldn’t name him Doctor, now, could I?”

“Rose.”

“I tried—I tried, and I couldn’t, I couldn’t do that to you, I just—”

“Say it.” And it’s not a command, it’s not even a question. It’s almost like a plea.

She takes a deep breath, wipes her eyes. “Doctor, this is John. Your son.”

And he knew, as soon as he met him, he knew this man was his father, but hearing her say it—hearing her call him John for the first time in a long time, and hearing it said, out loud, this man is his—

And it doesn’t help that she’s crying again and that the Doctor’s fighting back tears, and—

“Wait,” he says, because it doesn’t add up anymore. “But he knew. He left, because he knew. Right?”

“J—”

“Is that what you told him?” the Doctor asks, hurt evident in his voice.

“J,” she starts, ignoring the Doctor, “J, he didn’t—he didn’t leave, exactly.”

“No, then what’d he do? He didn’t leave, where’s he been all these years?”

“He—it—” she’s clearly struggling with how to put it, how to explain whatever it is to him, which is starting to piss him off. He feels like everything he knew—or thought he knew—isn’t true, and if it isn’t true then what is?

“He’s a time traveler,” she starts, and Johnny would laugh if she didn’t look so serious. “And we were together. For a while. But there was an—an incident.” She stops. “We were separated. Parallel universes. Grandma Jackie, Uncle Mickey, me, in one universe. And him in the other.”

He’s waiting for someone to jump in, pop out of the closet with a camera, tell him this is all a big joke, because really? She expects him to believe that? His father’s a time traveler who got trapped in a parallel universe? Really? But no one’s popping out of the closet, and the Doctor’s pacing, and she’s looking at him like she needs to him to understand.

“But—”

“I found out I was pregnant with you after.”

The Doctor’s looking at her now. She won’t meet his gaze, purposely looking only at Johnny. Johnny looks back and forth between them. He can’t tell what the look in his eyes is.

“He didn’t leave because of you, sweetheart. He’s not that kind of man. I never—he never knew about you.”

And, yes. Everything he thought he knew was a lie.

He doesn’t even realize he’s walked out until he hears the door slamming behind him—did he do that?—and her voice calling after him.

But he can’t bring himself to stop.


	4. Chapter 4

When Johnny was younger they made Father’s Day cards in art class.

He was one of those kids who’s got to make one for an uncle or a granddad. He remembers how it was always him and Michael T, sitting on their own, silent as they made their cards. As the other kids in their class talked about their dads and what they got them for the holiday, Johnny and Michael T would exchange glances over the markers and construction paper, glances that said, this sucks and I hate this and Mum’s been crying again and why can’t they shut up?

Around age 9 the school stopped with the card making—they’d outgrown such crafts, apparently. But as the day would approach, Johnny’s eyes would without a doubt meet Michael T’s in the hall.

It still sucks, yeah?

When Johnny was younger they made Father’s Day cards in art class, and it never mattered that he had Granddad Pete and Uncle Mickey and Uncle Jake. He didn’t have a dad. That was always the only thing that mattered.

Now his dad’s back—his dad who never knew he was a dad.

While he was traipsing around, unaware of his son’s existence, Johnny was forced to make Father’s Day cards for the men who’d had to step in for him.

Johnny’s not sure he can hate him for that.

There’s this park with a lake—well, a lake’s a bit generous. There’s a park with a small body of water that the architect or whoever designed it thought would add a bit of fun to the otherwise boring, ordinary park in their boring, ordinary part of the city. And they’d decided to add ducks, too, because why not?

That’s where Johnny is now, sitting on a bench at this park, glaring at ducks. Well, glaring might be an overstatement. Glaring implies effort, implies that Johnny’s purposely doing something, when really all he’s doing is staring at the ducks and running through the things he thought he knew and now knows.

He’s a bit surprised no one’s come after him, honestly. He thought for sure mum’d be right behind him, apologizing, and he doesn’t know the Doctor that well but he assumes he’d be right behind her, alternating between staring at his shoes with his hands shoved in his coat pockets and intensely focused on him, as if trying to communicate telepathically or something. But neither of them came after him, and his mobile’s not gone off, either, and he’d expected something, but he’s sort of glad they’re giving him this.

Whatever this is.

“Johnny?”

And he’s clearly spoken too soon. Thought too soon. Whatever.

“Johnny?”

It’s the Doctor. He can’t think of him as dad, can’t call him that, because that makes it real and it can’t be real, he can’t handle that yet, so he’s the Doctor, just the Doctor. But he’s here, standing with his hands in his coat pockets, looking at Johnny.

“Yeah?”

The Doctor doesn’t respond. Johnny goes back to the ducks.

“Mind if I—can I sit?”

“Can’t stop you, can I?”

The Doctor doesn’t sit. Johnny rolls his eyes and moves over a bit. The Doctor still doesn’t move.

“Oh, go on, then. Sit. Do whatever you want, I don’t care.”

“I wanted to make sure you were all right,” he says, still standing.

Johnny refuses to look at him. “Not dead in an alley. You can go let mum know.”

“I was worried about you, too, you know,” the Doctor says.

“That so?”

“Yeah.”

Neither of them says anything.

“You just going to stand there?” Johnny asks finally.

“I—”

“Because you can go. Tell her I’m all right. Sure you’ve a lot of catching up to do. I’ll stay out of your hair.”

The Doctor doesn’t say anything. Johnny sighs.

“Jesus Christ. Then I’ll go,” he says, standing to leave.

“Is that what you think?” the Doctor calls after him.

“Is what what I think?”

“That—your mum—that’s not it, you know.”

“What?”

“I’m not here because she sent me after you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I was worried.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my—you’re my son,” he says, and it catches in his throat a bit. Johnny looks away.

“You’ve known for all of three hours. You can’t possibly—”

“I’ve known since I first saw you.”

Johnny doesn’t know how to respond to that. Or any of this.

“Don’t shut me out,” the Doctor says, and it’s less an order than a plea.

“What d’you think you’re doing here anyway?” Johnny says, and it’s angrier than he’d expected. “You just—what—you show up to see mum, for what? But now, wrench in your plans, find out you’ve got a kid. What—what—I don’t understand—”

“I didn’t—”

“No, let me just—let me just say this, then, all right?” Johnny interrupts. He runs a hand through his hair, pacing. “You didn’t know about me. Fine. But I just don’t know what to expect here because if you’ve come back for mum, to take her back to your—to the fucking parallel world or whatever bullshit you said back there—if that’s why you’re here, I don’t know where I stand, because you came back here for her, but it’s not just her, is it, it’s her and it’s me, but you didn’t come back for us, so now what? You just going to leave again? I don’t know—I don’t know you, and you didn’t know about me, so—I just—”

“Let’s just—can I talk now?” the Doctor asks.

“Fine.”

“First off, I didn’t come back for her. No, wait, that’s not—that’s not what I meant,” he says off Johnny’s look. “I didn’t know where—okay. First things first. I’m a Time Lord.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that.”

“So I travel around in this—my time machine, the TARDIS. Time and relative dimension in space. The TARDIS—so sometimes I land places because I’ve—it’s a bit like a car, I’ve driven it there, so to speak. But sometimes I end up the wrong place, and sometimes—sometimes I don’t even know where, I just end up somewhere, walk out and have to figure it out. So when you met me yesterday—” God, was it only yesterday? Johnny thinks, and the Doctor’s got an expression like he’s thinking the same, “—I’d just landed here with Donna, no idea how, wasn’t a choice, just. Just landed and walked out and there you were.”

“But mum said we’re in a different universe—said you’d gone ‘cause it was impossible or whatever, so—”

“It is impossible, or it should be. I don’t know how I’m here, I honestly don’t. If I’d thought this could happen it would’ve, years ago. I don’t know any more than you so, Johnny,” the Doctor says. “So no, I didn’t come back to take her away.”

“But you want to. Now. Right?”

“I—I don’t know, Johnny,” the Doctor says, sitting on the bench. He runs his hands through his hair. “I want to be with her. I want her with me. But now there’s you.”

“Yeah. Now there’s me.”

That feeling he used to get when he was little, like he was the reason for his mum’s heart ache—it never fully went away, that feeling—is back, full force.

“I don’t mean it like that, Johnny. I—” he breaks off. Looks at Johnny. “I missed it all, didn’t I? And I didn’t even know it. The last time I saw her, she—she said, there was going to be a baby. And my hearts, I just—but then she said it was Jackie’s. Said it wasn’t her. And we had two minutes to say goodbye, and I thought I was never going to see her again, and I believed it, I believed it was Jackie, not her, because I didn’t—I couldn’t live with myself, knowing she was trapped here, forced to have my child, I couldn’t—but every so often. I’d wonder. If maybe she was lying. If there was—so when I saw you, I knew. I knew. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Would you have wanted me, if you’d known?” He hates himself for asking but he can’t stop himself.

“Of course.”

“But you’re going to leave again aren’t you?”

“I don’t know, Johnny. I don’t want to leave you two, but how could I ask you to go with me? You’ve got lives here. You’re still in school. There’s Jackie, and Pete, and Mickey, and the whole lot of people you’ve come to know. How could I ask you to leave all that behind?”

“So what, you’d just go, leave us here, send a postcard every now and then? She still loves you, never dates—never understood it, because she could, but she won’t because of you—it’s your fault. And you’d go, again, break her heart, abandon us—”

“It’s not that simple!” he exclaims, jumping to his feet.

“It fucking is!”

“You don’t understand—”

“Don’t make her decision for her! Or for me. Unless you don’t want us along.”

“Oh, don’t be stupid. Of course I want you with me. I’ve missed fifteen years, think I want to miss fifteen more?”

Pause.

“We should get back. Your mum’s probably worried,” the Doctor says.

“Yeah. Okay.”

They walk back to the flat in silence.


	5. Chapter 5

            When Johnny walks in his mum rushes over to him, gives him a hug, smoothes his hair. He went for a walk, it’s not like he was going to get kidnapped or something. He’d been gone a couple of hours, maybe, but the way she’s going on—

            The Doctor doesn’t say anything still, just stands there. Donna’s there as well. Apparently she and mum were having tea. She’s standing off to the side now, watching them. It makes Johnny feel claustrophobic.

            “Mum, I’m all right,” he says, stepping out of her grasp. She looks like she wants to reach for him again but stops herself.

            “Would you like a cup of tea?” Donna asks.

            “No, thanks,” he says.

            Silence.

            “I should—I have to go. Check the TARDIS,” the Doctor says.

            “Doctor—”

            “I have to—” And he trails off, leaving the flat with a soft click of the door. Mum looks like she might cry again, and Johnny hates him. Hates him for doing this, for always making mum cry. He doesn’t even care anymore that he didn’t know, doesn’t care that he loves her. He’s leaving, isn’t he? Doesn’t know what to do, can’t handle it, never signed up for it. He’s going to go. Again. Apparently that’s the sort of man his father is. Bastard.

            “I’ll talk to him,” Donna says. Rose nods thanks, tries to smile.

            “It won’t help,” he tells them.

            “J.”

            “Don’t you get it, mum? He’s not sticking around.”

            She doesn’t even respond to that. Just turns and goes to her room. Doesn’t even slam the door. Donna’s looking at him with this expression that’s much to close to pity for his liking.

            “What?” he asks.

            “Nothing,” she says softly.

            “Go after him, then. Have a fantastic life.”

            This time he leaves to go to his room. Only he slams the door behind him.

\---

            He used to want to be a space explorer. Back when he was really young. He remembers camping out in Grandma Jackie’s yard, falling asleep looking up at them. Mum let him put them up in his room, too. At first he’d just put them up at random, a small on here, a big one there.

            When he was 11 he got a book of constellations from Uncle Mickey for his birthday, this really pretty red book, all hard bound with smooth pages and smelling of ink. He pored over this book and took down all the stars from his ceiling, got more, and put them up accurately. He chose this favorite ones from the books and put them on the walls, all over. Like a secret sort of code only he knew.

            He remembers mum standing in the doorway, watching him as he applied the adhesive and stood on his bed, a star in one hand and the book in the other.

            “How’s it going?” she’d asked.

            “Fantastic,” he’d said. He went through a phase when everything was fantastic. His favorite word, that. She’d smile a bit whenever he said it. He hadn’t realized it was a sad smile at the time.

            “Just be careful,” she’d warned him. He’d grinned.

            “Of course, mum.”

            Before he went to bed he would stand and shine a torch at all his stars—to charge them—so that when he turned out the lights to sleep they would glow brightly. He’d fall asleep and it was like he remembered, almost, being 6 or 7 and camping in the yard, but better because he had his bed, and his favorite stars.

            He never knew why, but he always imagined—he always thought, I bet my dad knows about them. I bet he likes the stars, too.

            He used to imagine, sometimes, that his dad was the sort of dad who’d take him camping, stargazing, that they’d have a telescope, and he’d point out all the constellations to him, tell him their stories.

            But that wasn’t the case, and Johnny had to teach the stars to himself.

            They’re still up there, covering the walls. All his stars.

            As he falls asleep that night he can barely make them out, and he hates genetics a bit because he was right, wasn’t he? His dad does know all the stars.

            He never hated his dad much, despite his absence, and there was some part of him who always thought he must’ve been brilliant, his dad, who still wanted to be just like him.

            As he falls asleep he hopes, however he turns out, it’s nothing like him.

\---

            He wakes up in the morning to his alarm. It’s a school day. Of course it is. He rolls out of bed and gets ready. He could ditch, but what would he do? Wander around turn over all this new information? Again? No. School’s distracting, at least. Plus, he doesn’t need to give mum a headache over his truancy.

            Mum’s not awake when he walks into the kitchen. Coffee’s not been brewed. The lights are all off still. Something tugs at his heart and he tries to ignore it. Fills the water, pours the grounds. He turns the pot on and makes some toast. Takes one for himself and puts the other on a plate for mum.

            When the coffee’s ready he pours some in her favorite mug, adds the cream and sugar like she likes, and grabs the toast. She’s still sleeping in her room. There’s used tissue on her bedside table. He hates his father, but he’s beginning to grow used that.

            He clears the tissue and leaves the cup and toast for her. He hopes she wakes soon, so it doesn’t grow cold, but he figures she needs the sleep.

            As he leaves the flat he texts Uncle Mickey that mum’s not feeling well and won’t be in to work today. He doesn’t tell him about the Doctor. What’s the point? They won’t be seeing him again anyway. Best they all just move on with their lives.

            He knows mum will have a hard time of it. He wonders, not for the first time, what it was like when he first left. What his Grandma Jackie did, taking care of her and then, him. Picking up the pieces the Doctor left behind.

            Is this the sort of man the Doctor is? How many pieces of him are scattered through the universe? How many woman has he left stranded? How many children share his face and his mannerisms?

            He wants to believe that it’s just them. That his mother is the only one the Doctor has loved, that he is his only child.

            He’s just not sure he can.

\---

            Johnny’s barely paying attention when he walks out of school that afternoon. There’d been an exam he’d forgotten to study for in all the drama of his life these days, that he’s sure he failed, not to mention the work he’d neglected. He wandered through the day fuzzy, and he didn’t like it. He wanted to go home and shut himself in his room and lose himself in his schoolwork. Let mum have a good cry and then maybe tomorrow they could go on normally again. Pretend none of this had ever happened.

            But apparently it’s not going to be that simple.

            “Johnny.”

            The Doctor’s there, waiting for him. Of course he is.

            “Fuck off.”

            He keeps walking.

            “John, wait.”

            “Look, if you’ve come to say goodbye, all right, you’ve said it, now go.”

            “That’s not—”

            “And don’t go near her again.” He stops now, faces the Doctor, makes sure he’s hearing him. “You’ve hurt her enough, just leave her be now. Please.”

            He hadn’t meant—hadn’t planned that last bit. The Doctor looks a bit shocked.

            “What are you talking about?”

            “If you’re gonna leave just do it. Don’t draw it out, just go and let us—give us the chance to recover, all right?”

            The Doctor doesn’t say anything. Johnny’s heart sinks a little. Some part of him hoped but—

            He turns and continues walking. When he doesn’t hear the Doctor follow his heart sinks a little more.

            “I never—I never meant to hurt you. Both of you,” the Doctor calls.

            “Well, you did.”

            No use crying over spilled milk.

\---

            “Hi, mum,” Johnny says as he walks in. She’s not in the living room. He checks the kitchen and she’s not there, either. After dropping his bag in his room he checks her room. She’s still in bed, sitting up against the headboard, TV on. At least the coffee and toast is gone. She’s had something to eat, at least.

            “Mum?”

            She looks at him and smiles. That smile. He doesn’t let himself react outwardly to it.

            “Hi, sweetheart,” she says. He forces a smile.

            “Have you been here all day?”

            She ignores his question. “Come sit with me.”

            She’s taken care of him his whole life. He can take care of her this once. So he does, he gets in bed and sits next to her. She hugs him to her and sit and watch TV like they used to when he was little and had a bad dream, when he’d come into her room and she’d hold him and sit up with him and watch late night TV, pressing a kiss to his hair as he feel asleep.

            She kisses the top of his head then. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

            “For what?”

            “That you have to deal with this.”’

            “It’s not your fault,” he says, and he hopes she believes it.

            He pretends not to feel the tears.

            He stays with her until she falls asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

            He’s not hungry but he barely ate lunch and breakfast was just a piece of toast, so he figures he ought to have something. Anyway, he doesn’t want the Doctor to win.

            And maybe it sounds stupid or childish, but if they just sit around moping, not eating, crying and watching telly and not moving on, then hasn’t he won? Hasn’t it only proven that they can’t function without him, when the reality is that they got on quite well in his absence? Johnny’s not perfect but he’s decently well-adjusted, and maybe mum gets sad sometimes but she gets by. She goes to work and goes out with friends and supports him and doesn’t shut herself up in her room, crying and not eating like today. They got by fine without the Doctor, and they’ll go on without him. Simple as that.

            Mum’s sleeping and Johnny’s searching the cupboards for something to eat when there’s a light knock at the door. He braces himself before opening it.

            “Hello.”

            It’s Donna.

            “What?”

            “I’ve brought chips,” she says, holding up a bag.

            “Not interested.” He’s not sure why he’s being this way with her. She’s not the Doctor, she doesn’t deserve his anger, but well, he’s 15 isn’t he?

            “Oh, move it and let me in,” she says. He rolls his eyes and does as she says. She gives him a sarcastic thanks and sets the food on the coffee table.

            “Where’s your mum?”

            “Sleeping,” Johnny answers, closing the door and crossing his arms.

            “It’s 6:30.”

            “I noticed.”

            “What’s she doing that for?”

            “Don’t think she slept much last night. Broken heart and all.”

            He’s not sure why he’s trying to guilt Donna but he is. She sighs heavily but continues to pull food out of the bag.

            “Sit down and eat, and stop being so stubborn.”

            “Why should I listen to you?”

            “Because I’m trying to help you, John.”

            He doubts that. And he wonders what she means by help. And maybe he’s hungrier than he realized. Regardless of his reasons he sits and takes the food she offers him. She smiles.

            “If you’re here to tell me he’s not that bad, really, once you get to know him, I’ll throw you out, I swear it.”

            “I’m not here to tell you that. It’s true, but he’s being a right git about this whole thing and Lord knows he hasn’t the emotional maturity to handle this, but luckily he’s got me. Over 900 and still—”

            “What?”

            “Yeah, he’s over 900 years old. You’d think he’d—”

            “You mean to tell me my—that he’s 900 years old.”

            “Yes.”

            “A 900 year old alien.”

            “Bit weird, isn’t it? But then, lot’s weird with him. I’m in a parallel universe for crying out loud!”

            “They keep saying that—all this—and I’m just supposed to believe it?”

            “Why would they lie?”

            “Why wouldn’t she tell me? Why would she keep this from me?”

            And that’s the root of it, isn’t it? Maybe not all of it, but this—this frustration he can’t shake, this anger he feels toward his mum, that he knows is ridiculous and irrational and completely unfair, but why didn’t she tell him? Why did she never say anything to him about his dad? She never even told him his name! No photos, nothing. All John’s life, his father had just been this idea, this abstract concept, this void that no one talked about but everyone felt. He hadn’t known what to think. Why the silence? Why was mum so sad? He’d grown up thinking maybe his dad was a bad man, or maybe he was great, but he always, always thought he abandoned them. He always believed he hadn’t wanted them, John or his mum. But now they’re telling him that none of it was true, none of what he’d come to believe so deep in himself was real. His father was a good man—a great man, even. His father _had_ wanted them. His father _hadn’t_ abandoned them. More than that—his father hadn’t even _known_ about him. And that’s a different way to grow up, isn’t it? My father never wanted me versus my father never knew about me. That’s—

            And all these thoughts are racing through his head and Donna can’t possibly understand any of it, so he doesn’t even bother trying to explain.

            “I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know why she kept it from you. I’m sure she thought she was protecting you.”

            “Protecting me? From what? They said—it was impossible, he was never coming back. He couldn’t. So why not explain that, why let me think he never—”

            “I don’t know.”

            They fall into a tense silence and continue to eat their food.

            “Where is he, then?” Johnny asks. Not that he _wants_ to see him or anything, but.

            “The TARDIS,” Donna answers.

            “How come he’s not here?”

            “He thinks you don’t want to see him.”

            Something turns in his stomach at that. He ignores it.

            “That sounds like crap.”

            “It is,” Donna agrees. “He’s just afraid that you and your mum have built this great life without him and that you would never chose to go with him. So he’s staying away.”

            “But why’s he get to decide for us? How’s he know what our life—my life—has been like? He hasn’t even asked.”

            “He thinks you’ll both be better off if he just leaves.”

            His heart sinks a little. He ignores it.

            “We will be. So he should just—” And there’s not even any fight to it.

            “Johnny.” Donna’s got that concerned voice, and he knows she’s looking at him like—like that, like pity or something, and he won’t meet her gaze.

            “We were fine. We didn’t need him.”

            It’s true. But—

            “But?” Donna prompts.

            “But you can’t just—you can’t just walk in and then walk out. It doesn’t—you can’t do that. He can’t do that to her.”

            “What about you?” she asks. “What do you want, Johnny?”

            He opens his mouth but then closes it. Stops.

            He doesn’t actually know.

\---

            When Johnny was 9 he got in a fight at school. A proper one. No one won because the teachers broke it up, but he got a black eye and gave the other boy—Teddy McCallister—a split lip.

            Uncle Jake’s the one who picked him up from school, because Mum and Uncle Mickey were on a job or something, and Grandma Jackie and Granddad Pete had gone away for the day. So Uncle Jake came by the school and got him from the headmaster’s office. He had to go in and talk to the headmaster first, though, so Johnny had to wait in the office with Randall Ellis, who was there for mouthing off.

            “That your dad?” he’d asked.

            “No.”

            “Oh. How come your dad’s not here?”

            Johnny’d just shrugged.

            “You one of those kids then?”

            “One of what kids?”

            “One of them kids whose dad’s run off?”

            “No.”

            “Then where’s your dad?”

            “Working. He’s got an important job.”

            Randall looked like he didn’t believe him but he didn’t ask any more.

            When Uncle Jake came out he clapped Johnny on the shoulder and carried his backpack to the car.

            “So what happened, J?”

            Sometimes Uncle Jake called Johnny ‘J’ like mum did.

            “Nothing.”

            “That don’t look like nothing.”

            Johnny looked down at his hands.

            “What’d he say?”

            “Stuff ‘bout my dad,” Johnny muttered.

            “What sort of stuff?”

            Johnny refused to look at him. “Stuff like he—like he didn’t want us. ‘Bout how he took off. ‘Bout mum.”

            Uncle Jake didn’t say anything at first.

            “I got angry. I know I shouldn’t’ve—”

            “No, you shouldn’t’ve,” Uncle Jake agreed. “But—” And he paused. Like he wasn’t sure how to say what he wanted to say. Then: “You know it’s not true, though, right?”

            “What?”

            “That your dad didn’t want you. It’s not true.”

            “How do you know?”

            “’Cause I do. Ignore those kids. Your dad’s not like the dads who just run off. All right? It’s more complicated than that. Don’t let it get to you.”

            Johnny had nodded, still not looking at Uncle Jake.

            Uncle Jake didn’t say anything else, then, just started the car and took Johnny to get ice cream.

            But when Johnny lied about the fight to mum Uncle Jake didn’t step in and call him on it.

            As Johnny had tried to fall asleep that night he thought about what Teddy had said, and what Randall had said. About what Uncle Jake had said. And he knew he could believe his dad was some wanker, like Teddy and Randall did, or he could keep on believing he was some sort of great man doing some sort of great work, who _couldn’t_ be around.

            Like he’d done his whole life, he chose the latter.

            (But like he’d done his whole life, he feared it wasn’t true.)

\---

            Donna goes to leave and mum’s still sleeping.

            “Thanks, for—”

            “Yeah, of course.”

            She smiles at him and hugs him, and he’s not sure why but he lets her.

            “I don’t—tell him not to leave yet. Please.”

            Donna nods. “I will.”

            Johnny’s 15 years old. He’s not a little kid anymore, but he thinks that maybe when it comes to his dad, he still is. That he’s still that kid who wished his dad could teach him the constellations. Who gave Teddy McCallister a split lip for insulting him.

            “Tell him—tell him I’ll meet him tomorrow morning. At the park.”

            Donna smiles.

            He does know, actually. What he wants.

            He wants a dad. A proper one. And more than anything at this moment, he wants his dad—wants the Doctor—to want to be that.

            Still.


	7. Chapter 7

            Johnny barely sleeps that night. Mostly he just lies there. Looks up at his ceiling, littered with plastic glow in the dark stars. Thinks about his mum and his dad and his uncles and granddad.

Mostly he wonders if the Doctor will show up tomorrow.

\---

            Mum’s in the kitchen when he wakes up. He can smell the coffee and that warms him somehow. They’re moving on. They’ll be okay. She’ll be okay.

            He didn’t tell Donna a time to tell the Doctor, but it’s nearly ten so he gets up and gets dressed. Slips on his trainers and grabs a sweatshirt. Mum smiles at him when she sees him, and it’s _that_ smile. He wants to apologize, but for what? He has his father’s face, his father’s hair, his father’s everything, it seems. He can’t help that. But God, he wants to.

            “Morning, mum,” he says instead. “I’m going out, yeah?”           

            “Out where?” she asks.

            “Library,” he lies. “Got a few projects to work on, wanna get a head start.”

            She nods. He hugs her because he feels like she needs it. Or maybe that’s him.

            “Be careful,” she tells him.

            “I will.”

            “I love you.”

            He doesn’t know why his eyes are stinging but he avoids her gaze and says it back. He waits until he’s out in the hall to wipe his eyes.

\---

            He can’t remember the details, but there was this once—this one time he remembers Grandma Jackie mentioning his father.

            He’d done something or said something, and she’d looked at him and said, “You’re so like him.” With this fondness in her smile.

            She never mentioned him otherwise, not even snide comments. Just like he’d never existed.

            But he always wondered, what she’d thought of his dad. Whether she’d got on with him. Whether she hated him. No one else seemed to.

            That was something Johnny never understood. How he could be completely absent, yet no one seemed to hold it against him.

            He never understood how he was supposed to reconcile being so much like that man. What it meant for him, to have been made in the image of a ghost.

\---

            The Doctor’s already there when Johnny arrives. He’s pacing by a bench, and when he sees Johnny his eyes light up briefly before he turns neutral again.

            “Hi,” Johnny says.

            “Hello.”

            They don’t say anything for a moment. The Doctor starts to pull something out of his pocket.

            “I didn’t know what kind of tea you liked, or if you liked bagels or muffins or scones, or what kind, so I got—I got one of everything,” he explains, pulling little pastry bags and handing them to Johnny. The bags make a lot of noise and Johnny nearly drops one but the Doctor catches it. “I didn’t get tea, because I wasn’t sure—and I didn’t want it to get cold, so—we can get some if you want, or we could—or you could just have the—I wasn’t sure if you’d eat or—”

            “Thanks,” Johnny interrupts. He sits on the bench and starts to look through the bags. “Did you get anything banana?”

            The Doctor beams and sits down beside him.

            “I did. There’s a muffin, and some banana bread.”

            “Fantastic.”

            They fall into silence again, and it’s a little less awkward, but only a little. Johnny offers him a piece of the banana bread, and they sit and watch the ducks and eat.

            “I don’t really know what to do here. I hadn’t exactly planned it out,” Johnny confesses.

            “I’m not sure what to do either,” the Doctor admits.

            “You’re the adult here. Aren’t you supposed to have the answers?”

            “Supposedly. I’m new at all this, though.”

            “What? Being a dad?”

            “Well,” the Doctor says, rubbing his neck. “Not exactly. I’ve had children. Grandchildren.”

            “Had?”

            “Yes. Had.”

            “What happened to them?”

            “They died.”

            “Oh.”

            He remembers, then, that his—that the Doctor’s 900 or something ridiculous. Even if he looks only a bit older than mum.

            “Was that before you met my mum?”

            “Yes.”

            “Did you love them?”

            “Of course.”

            He lets the next question hang in the air. He doesn’t need to speak it. It’s all they can hear, screaming in the silence.

            “Of course,” the Doctor repeats, quietly. “Do you hate me?”

            “No.” He’s surprised it’s the truth, but it is.

            “Did you ever?”

            “I don’t think so,” Johnny says, and he’s surprised to realize that that’s true, too. “I don’t think I ever understood it, really. Anger would’ve been easy, but it was like—I dunno. I think I wanted you to be a hero, or something, so I believed it. You were already gone, villain would’ve been easy, but I wanted—” He pauses. The Doctor’s not looking at him, focusing on his trainers, and Johnny’s not looking at him either. He takes a breath. “They all said, how I’m so like you. How I look like you and—and I think I wanted you to be good. So that it was a good thing, to be like you.” He shrugs. “I dunno.”

            Silence.

            “I didn’t know about you.”

            “Yeah, you mentioned that.”

            “If I’d known—”

            “What? What would you have done?”

            The Doctor doesn’t answer right away. He opens his mouth a few times but nothing comes out.

            “The last time I saw your mum—it was just a—an image, a projection. She was on a beach, I was in the TARDIS. We had a few minutes. The last gap in the universe was closing. There was nothing, no way—it would’ve broken everything, the whole, all of it, both universes, crushed. That’s what being with her, getting her back, would’ve meant.”

            “She didn’t tell you on purpose, then.”

            It’s not a question. Makes sense. Sounds like something mum would do. To protect him. Strange to think of the Doctor needing protecting.

            “Yeah.”

            “Would you have, really? Destroyed the universe just for the sake of it, for the gesture?”

            “I don’t know. As it was I wanted—had I known—I don’t know. Maybe.”

            Johnny nods.

            “How is she?”

            “All right.”

            “Honestly.”

            Johnny shrugs. “Thinks you’ve left, or are leaving. She’s upset.”

            “I can’t stay. I don’t know how I got here, but I know I can’t.”

            It’s surprising, how much that hurts. He’d assumed, he’d figured as much, but hearing him actually say it, hearing the words—

            “So you’re really just going to go? Again.”

            “It’s a fragile thing, parallel universes. I can’t—”

            “So this is goodbye, then?”

            “Johnny.” There’s such sadness there. He wants none of it.

            “You know, I used to—I used to—” He’s pacing now, trying to find his words, trying not to cry, trying—

            “How can you just go?”

            The Doctor hugs him close. Johnny’s not sure why but he lets him. He wants to ask if they can go with him.

            He can’t.

\---

            “Wanna see it? The TARDIS?”

            “I’ve already seen it.”

            “I mean, inside. Do you—would you like—”

            No. He doesn’t, not really. Why go see this—this space ship, this stupid box that’s going to disappear again, why learn anything to attach memories to?

            “No, I think I’m just gonna go home.”

            “Johnny—”

            “No, I shouldn’t’ve—this was—I’m gonna go,” he says, getting up and starting to walk away.

            “Johnny—”

            He turns to face the Doctor.

            “Say goodbye this time, all right?”

            The Doctor’s standing, too.

            “I can’t stay. I wish I could but—John, I can’t.”

            “I know, I get it! But you owe her a goodbye at least! You owe her—at least give her that.”

            _And me. Give me that._

            “Would you—do you . . . want to come?”

            “What?”

            The Doctor shrugs. He’s trying to be nonchalant, Johnny can tell, but he’s shit at it.

            “You, and your mum. You could—if you want—come. With me.”

            “In the TARDIS?”

            “Yes.”

            “To the parallel universe?”

            “Yes.”

            He bites his lip. This is what he wanted and yet—

            Could they really?

            He imagines the three of them—and Donna, he supposes. Mum, and the Doctor, and him. Like a—like a family. Traveling through the stars. The Doctor teaching him things, holding mum’s hand. Like it should’ve been but never was.

            “If not, that’s—I just—nevermind, forget I—”

            “No, don’t—”

            “So you want to?”

            “I—I dunno.”

            The Doctor nods, a little dejected.  

            “I’m gonna go home,” Johnny says.

            “Right, yeah.”

            “D’you want to come? Talk to mum?”

            The Doctor brightens.

            “Definitely, yeah.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Yep. Lead the way.”

            Because he’s _asking_. Because he _wants_ them.

\---

            “Mum!” Johnny calls when he walks in. It smells like banana bread.

            “In the kitchen!” she calls back.

            The Doctor’s fidgeting.

            “Come on, then,” Johnny says with a smile.

            “Did you say something?” mum asks as he walks into the kitchen. He shakes his head as she turns.

            Stops.

            “Hello again,” the Doctor says.

            “You’re still here.”

            “I wouldn’t go without saying goodbye,” he says softly.

            “He said we could go with him when he leaves,” Johnny tells her. The walk over gave him time to process, time to think, and yes, he wants—of course he—this is exactly what he wanted. He grins, and mum looks at him, but she’s not smiling.

            “Did he,” she says flatly, looking back at the Doctor.

            “Yeah.”

            “Rose—”

            “J, why don’t you run and get some food.”

            “What?”

            What is she doing? Why isn’t she saying yes? Why isn’t she happy about this, and why’s she telling him to go away so the grown-ups can talk?

            “Bring us back some lunch,” she says with a (forced) smile.

            “But—”

            “John.”

            The Doctor gives him a soft smile.

            “Listen to your mum.”

            Like he’s a _child_.

            “Fine.”

            “Get some money from my purse to take with you.”

            “Whatever,” he says, turning on his heel.

            “John.” The Doctor says it like a warning and he bristles a bit. Father or not where’s he get off trying to discipline him? Johnny doesn’t argue, though, just leaves the room.

            “Doctor—” he hears mum start.

            “Rose—”

            “What are you doing?”

            He goes to his mum’s room to get the money, and when he passes the kitchen he hears—

            “You can’t just say things like that to him! You can’t go making promises—”

            “I’m not making promises—”

            “—that you won’t keep!”

            “I’m serious, Rose!”

            “He’s 15!”

            “I know how old he is! No thanks to you.”

            The sound of a palm hitting skin.

            “Get out.”

            “Rose, I—”

            “Doctor—”

            “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

            The sound of crying.

            Johnny makes sure to slam the door behind him.

\---

            He’s on his way to the chippy when he sees Michael T. He’s smoking, and he nods hello to Johnny. Johnny wanders over to him. Mum and the Doctor can wait.

            “Hey,” he says.

            “Hey.”

            “Can I have one?”

            Michael nods and pulls a carton from his pocket, offers Johnny a cigarette. Lights it for him.

            “So how’s life?” Michael asks. Johnny shrugs.

            “Your dad ever come around sometimes?”

            Because he’s the only person Johnny can talk about this with. He’s the only one who could possibly understand.

            “Sometimes. Couple days here and there.” He takes a drag. “Yours?”

            “Few days ago. First time.”

            Michael nods knowingly.

            “Tell you to get lost so they can ‘catch up’?”

            Johnny punches his arm. Michael laughs.

            “So they can yell at each other more like.”

            “There’s that, too.”

            Johnny’s never smoked before. He’s not sure if he ever will again. But he likes having something to do with his hands. Likes having something else to focus on.

            “He staying with you lot?” Michael asks.

            “No, he’s got his—no.”

            “Mine usually stays with us. Tells me to go away for a few hours so he and mum can—well.”

            “It’s not like that.”

            “How d’you know?”

            “He’s only been by once.”

            “And during school? They’ve probably shagged, only reason they ever come back.”

            “Fuck off.”

            “Just saying.”

            “Well don’t.”

            He takes another drag.

            “He staying?” Michael asks.

            “No. Leaving soon.”

            “Always do.”

            Michael throws his cigarette on the floor. Crushes it. Lights another.

            “He asked us to come with him.”

            “Yeah?”

            Johnny nods.

            “Where’s he living, then?”

            Johnny struggles. “Far.”

            “Different country?”

            “Yeah.”

            “What, like Scotland?”

            “Yeah. Scotland.”

            “What’d your mum say?”

            “Sent me out of the house.”

            Michael nods again.

            “Would you go?”

            “Think so, yeah. Would you?”

            Michael laughs. “Only reason my dad ever comes ‘round is for a fuck. He’s not asking us anywhere with him.”

            “But if he did?”

            “No.”

            Michael T’s probably the closest Johnny’s got to a friend, and all they have are these moments of understanding. Linked only by their absent fathers. His heart aches.

            “Your dad come ‘round lately?”

            “Why you think I’m out here, ‘cause it’s such a nice fucking day?”

            Johnny nods, a weight settling in his stomach. The Doctor’s not—he may be a lot of things. But he’s definitely not like Michael T’s dad.

            “Thanks for the smoke,” Johnny says after a pause. Michael nods.

            “Anytime.”

            He’d invite him over, but that’s not how they are. They don’t do details, they don’t talk. This is out of the ordinary for them. He wishes for a moment that it wasn’t, that he and Michael T were friends like other people are friends.

            “See you at school.”

            “Maybe.” Michael smiles. “Hope it works out, Tyler.”

            “Thanks. And you—”

            “It’s not. For me. But, thanks.”

            He nods. Michael T nods back.

            He heads to the chippy.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm not dead. I forgot that I never finished this story on here, and then I kept forgetting to upload the chapters. So, sorry about that! Enjoy.

            He braces himself before he walks back into the flat but he’s not even sure what he’s bracing himself for.

            He opens the door and they’re not in the living room. The flat is silent so they’re clearly not yelling at each other, which is a good sign. He tries the kitchen.

            They’re still there, and they don’t notice him right away. He hangs back and watches them. The Doctor’s holding mum close, and she’s got her face buried in his chest, and he’s muttering words to her that Johnny can’t quite make out. Every so often she nods, and he hears her respond but he can’t hear those words, either.

            And he almost feels like he should back out, re-enter the flat loudly, somehow announce his presence. He’s _never_ seen his mum date, never seen her around men who weren’t family, not like this. This is—it’s intimate. And it’s strange, and he feels strange, and how could she _possibly_ not want to go? How could they possibly stay here? She loves the Doctor, and the Doctor loves her, and he doesn’t know how to describe what he’s feeling, he just—

            He clears his throat a bit and they don’t quite spring apart and mum’s eyes are red from crying (God, he hopes that stops soon). She leans into the Doctor’s side, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her waist, and smiles at Johnny.

            “I got food,” he says stupidly, holding up the bag. He walked in on them _hugging_ , for God’s sake, so why is he blushing?

            His mum looks up at the Doctor. “Do you wanna stay?”

            “I’ll let you two talk,” he replies, and Johnny may as well not even be in the room, they’re so wrapped up in each other.

            “Okay.”

            “But I’ll come by for dinner?”

            “We’re going to my mum’s for dinner.”

            The Doctor flinches and Johnny can’t help but grin a bit at that.

            “Do you want to come?”

            “Not really. But I will.”

            She smiles at him and he smiles at her and it makes sense, to Johnny, that they were in love all those years ago. He’d known—he’d been told but—he can see it, now. They really were—

            “Come by around 5, then.”

            “Okay.”

            They hug again, and she gives him a quick kiss and Johnny’s blushing again, but the Doctor is, too, so.

            He smiles at Johnny as he leaves, and mum sits down at the table and beckons him to join her, so he does. He hears the door click shut.

            “So,” he begins, and he really has no idea where he’s going with it.

            “So, we talked it over a bit,” she says, taking the bag of food and pulling out the packages.

            “And did you guys decide?”

            “What do you want to do, J?”

            He shrugs.

            “No, this is important. We can’t just—it’s a big deal. If we go with him, we can never come back here. If we go with him we’ll be going to a parallel world—where me, your grandmum, and uncle Mickey are from—but it’s a bit different from here. All the people you know from here, you’ll never see them again.”

            “Why don’t you want to go?” he asks, frustrated.

            “I do,” she says. “That’s not—”

            “He wants us to go with him, so why aren’t you—”

            “I _know_. J, believe me, I know, and I want to go with him, I’ve spent—” she breaks off. Gets up, grabs plates and distributes their food. Sits back down. He starts eating, confused, because when he left they were arguing and when he came back they were—and she _kissed_ him, and he’s coming back later, but she’s—

            “I want to go, mum,” he says. “I don’t care if we never come back here, I don’t want—I want to go.”

            She nods, smiling slightly.

            “So are we?”

            “I think so.”

            He can’t help the grin. “Really?”

            “Yeah.”

            “And you told him?”

            “Of course.”

            “So we’re going, definitely.”

            “I mean—”

            “Mum.”

            “Unless something changes in the next few hours, yes, when he leaves we’re going with him. I didn’t say yes right away because he and I needed to discuss it first, and I wanted to talk to you about it, too. I know how he is, he swoops in and charms his way into your heart and when he asks you to go away with him, how could anyone say no? But this is different, because this is forever.”

            “But he loves—”

            _You?_

_Us?_

            He doesn’t finish the sentence but he doesn’t need to.

“I know he does,” she says softly. “But still.” She starts eating, too. “So you’re okay with it?”

            “Of course.”

            “J. Be honest. I know a lot has happened the past few days and I haven’t been—I haven’t been there for you, and I’m sure you have a lot of questions and I’m sorry.”

            He looks down at his plate.

            “What are you thinking?”

            He shrugs.

            “I dunno.” He eats a bit more of his food. He barely tastes it. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about him?”

            This time she shrugs. “It wasn’t really a conscious—I always figured I would eventually. At first, I was sure he’d come back, he’d figure it out, and—and then, after I gave up on that—you were about 5 or 6 then—I just didn’t want to talk about him.”

            “Were you angry with him?”

            “Sometimes. Mostly just sad. He was the love of my life, J. And I was never going to see him again. It was hard.”

            “Do you still love him?”

            “Yeah.”

            For some reason he hadn’t quite expected her to answer, at least not so bluntly.

            “I thought he didn’t want us,” he says quietly, not looking at her.

            “He didn’t know.”

            “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

            “It never occurred to me.”

            That upsets him. “How could it not—”

            “I’m sorry.”

            Pause.

            “I didn’t want to tell you stories of him because I didn’t want you to make him into some hero in case he never came back.”

            “Why not just tell me he died?”

            “In case he ever came back.”

            He laughs darkly.

            “You were so sure—”

            “No. I was just—I was young, J. He said it was impossible but if you knew him—I hoped he’d find a way around it. And he’d come back.”

            He nods.

            He forgets sometimes how young his mum is. She was only, what, 21 or 22 when he was born? No teen mum, sure, but still.

            “I’m sorry, J,” she says again.

            He smiles lightly. “I know. It’s all right.”

            Or it will be, in any case.

            They eat in silence for a few more minutes, and then—

            “I’m not—I don’t wanna call him—can I call him Doctor?”

            “Of course, sweetheart. You can call him whatever you want.”

            “He won’t get upset?”

            “I’m sure he’ll understand.”

            “I want to, I want to call him—I just, not right now. Not yet.”

            She nods.

            “Call him whatever you feel comfortable with.”

            He nods, relieved.

            “Is grandma Jackie gonna kill him?”

            Mum laughs.

            “No, she won’t kill him. Probably just give him a slap.”

            He can almost picture it. He laughs, too.

\---

            After they finish eating he goes to his room and starts packing. He doesn’t know when they’re leaving, or how much he’d even be able to bring. (the Doctor made it sound like the TARDIS was this proper ship, but all he remembers is a small blue box, so he can’t imagine he can bring a lot of things. No space for it.)

             He looks around his room, makes a pile of his favorite books, pulls out his favorite –t-shirts and jumpers and jeans, empties his backpack of school things and starts filling it with knick knacks. 

\---

            Someone’s knocking—pounding, actually—on the front door, and Johnny’s on his way to answer when he sees mum beat him to it, and then uncle Mickey bursts in, and Johnny can’t remember ever seeing him so angry.

            “Where is he?” he demands.

            “Mickey—”

            “He’s here, right?”

            Johnny has a feeling he’ll probably get sent to his room if he makes his presence known so he doesn’t.

            “No, he’s coming back later.”

            Uncle Mickey laughs darkly.

            “So that’s it, then?” he says.

            “Mick—”

            “He comes breezing in and you’re just gonna go with him?”

            Mum doesn’t respond and uncle Mickey sighs.

            “Figures.”

            “What do you expect?” his mum asks angrily.

            “I expect you to think about someone other than yourself!”

            “I am! Do you think this is easy?”

            “What about your mum? Pete?”

            “They’ll understand—”

            “You sure?”

            “I lost him once, I won’t lose him again.”

            “And what about me?”

            Pause.

            “Don’t forget you’re the one who left first,” she says.

            “ _I_ left first?”

            “Mickey—”

            “He showed up and you took off, never looked back! I waited for you—”

            “First time we landed here who decided to stay?”

            “There was nothing left for me back there!”

            “There was me!”

            Uncle Mickey laughs again.

            “Long as he was around, you never saw anyone else.”

            Pause.

            “What are you saying, Mickey?”

            “You’re just gonna go—run back to him, run off, and take Johnny with you?”

            “That’s his son.”

            “And who raised him?”

            Mum doesn’t respond.

            “I’ve been more a father to him than he has,” uncle Mickey says, and Johnny’s heart hurts.

            “That’s not his fault,” his mum protests weakly.

            “Doesn’t make it not true!”

            “What am I supposed to do, Mickey! Stay? Hug him goodbye and watch him fade away again? And what about J?”

            “You’re picking him over us, over your whole family? All the people who where there for you, who helped pick up the pieces _he_ left—”

            “That wasn’t his fault!”

            Johnny wants to step in, say something, make uncle Mickey not mad, make mum not cry, make it so they can all live in the same universe so no one _has_ to decide. He wants—

            There’s a knock at the door and Johnny curses under his breath.

            _For a Time Lord he’s got shitty timing_ , he thinks.

            He sees uncle Mickey raise his eyebrow in question and then cross his arms. Mum sighs and goes to the door. Johnny walks into the room, and uncle Mickey barely glances at him. It hurts.

            “Hello,” he hears the Doctor say, giving mum a quick kiss.

            “Hi,” she says, and she wraps her arms around him for a hug.

            “What’s wrong?” he asks, hugging her back.

            “’lo, Doctor,” uncle Mickey says, and the way he says it, the challenge there, the way the Doctor’s eyes narrow, Johnny’s heart drops.

            “Mickey.”

            “So you came back, huh?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Took you long enough.”

            “Mickey,” mum says, having let go of the Doctor.

            “It’s true.”

            The Doctor’s eyes are hard. Johnny wants to be anywhere but here.

            “So I hear you’re whisking off Rose and Johnny. Seem to do that a lot. You told Jackie yet? Can’t wait to hear how that goes.”

            The Doctor still doesn’t say anything and Johnny desperately wants him to. Say, do something, make it right, fix it, anything.

            “Wait, you’re heading there now, right? Mind if I come?”

            “Yes,” the Doctor says. Mickey just smiles.

            “Wasn’t asking you.”

            He looks at Rose and she looks at the Doctor and it’s like they’re having a conversation and the Doctor sighs and mum looks back at uncle Mickey.

            “Yeah, all right. Come if you want. Call Jake as well,” she adds.

            “You didn’t tell him?”

            “I did.”

            “And what’d he say?”

            “Didn’t say anything. I’m gonna go grab my bag,” she says, and the Doctor looks like he wants to follow her but doesn’t. She smiles at Johnny as she passes, her eyes watery, and he wants to hug her but he doesn’t. When he looks away he sees the Doctor’s eyes on him.

            “You all right?” he asks. Johnny nods.

            “Yeah.”

            Uncle Mickey doesn’t say anything to him, not even hi, and Johnny feels guilty, for the first time since the Doctor walked into their lives, for wanting to go with him. He feels like he’s choosing the Doctor over uncle Mickey, and he hates them or the universe or whoever’s fault this is for making him choose.

            He loves uncle Mickey. Uncle Jake, too, and grandmum and granddad. But the Doctor—

            But he loves his dad, too.

            And it’s confusing, because he doesn’t know the Doctor. He doesn’t know this man whose face he has, this man who is, in fact, his dad. He doesn’t know anything about him, really; he just wants to. He spent his whole life loving the idea of this man and now he’s met him and he’s—

            He has to choose, now. Between his actual dad, and the man who’s acted like his dad his whole life. And he hates that he has to choose, but he also—he just—

            He chooses his dad.

\---

            Mum told uncle Mickey to take his own car, and he’d said fine, he was gonna go pick up Jake, and then he left, and mum grabbed her keys and the Doctor looked more concerned now than angry and told Johnny he might want to grab a coat, it’s getting cold, and Johnny’s not sure why that makes him happy but it does.

            When he comes back to the living room with his coat mum smiles reassuringly at him, and she’s holding the Doctor’s hand and somehow that reassures him more than anything.

            “Want me to drive?” the Doctor asks as they walk to the car.

            “Can you drive?” she says skeptically.

            “Rose Tyler, if I can manage the TARDIS I’m fairly certain I can drive your car.”

            “But you haven’t got a license,” she reminds him with a smile. He scoffs.

            “Psychic paper. Besides, I’ll not get pulled over. I’m a brilliant driver.”

            “Uh huh,” she says, unconvinced. She pulls the keys out and when he goes to grab them she pulls them away, grinning, raising them above her head, and they’re acting like teenagers, grinning and giggling and fighting over the car keys and Johnny sort of loves it. It’s different, it’s not something he’s used to.

            And he’s never seen her smile like this.

            The Doctor gets the keys and leans down to kiss her, arms going around her.

            “I missed you,” he mutters, so low Johnny almost doesn’t hear it.

            “I missed you, too,” she responds just as quietly.

            “Are you okay?”

            She shrugs.

            “I’m sorry,” he says.

            “Not your fault,” she replies.

            “I know, but—” The Doctor breaks off, and he looks conflicted, and it’s making Johnny nervous, but they’re still hugging, his mum and his—the Doctor—and they’re going to grandma Jackie’s together, and he’s _here_ , and he _wants_ them, and—

            “If you want to stay—”

            _No, no—_

“Doctor—” mum starts.

            “I’d understand, I know it’s—they’re your family and—” He takes a deep breath like he’s bracing himself for what he’s about to say and Johnny hates him a little. “You don’t have to come with me.”

            “I made my choice a long time ago. Remember?”

            “I know, but—”

            “Do you not want us to come, is that it?”

            “Of course not, Rose, that’s not—”

            “I’m not changing my mind.”

            “But you can.”

            “But I’m not.” She kisses him again.

            “I’m sorry you have to choose,” he mumbles.

            “I know you are. But it’s not your fault.”

            He nods.

            Johnny doesn’t know how to feel. He’s never seen his mum like this with anyone, and now she’s—they’re hugging, and kissing, like it’s natural, like it’s nothing, like it’s just something they do, and it’s—it’s as though—they act like they’ve been around each other always, like he _hasn’t_ been gone the last 15 years, and Johnny’s reminded again of the fact that they were together, they loved each other. And it’s—but—

            Mum kisses the Doctor, smiling. “You’re stuck with us, Doctor,” she tells him, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

            “I love you,” he says, and Johnny’s heart skips. His mum’s smile changes, softens, and she hugs the Doctor tighter.

            “I love you, too.”

            And Johnny figures this must be normal for most kids—most kids his age, they see their parents kiss, hug—say I love you. It’s normal for them, because they grew up with two parents. But he hasn’t, and this isn’t normal for him, and it—

            He spent his whole life loving his dad, afraid his dad didn’t love him. Didn’t love mum. A life time of mum’s sad smiles when she looked at him sometimes, of hearing her crying over this man, of seeing her not moving on because she was still in love with him, so to be here, now, to—to see them hug, and kiss, to hear the Doctor tell her he loves her, to find out that he wants them with him—

            “We should go. Don’t want to be late,” mum says, and the Doctor sighs heavily.

            “Yes. Can’t keep Jackie waiting.”

            “You still wanna drive?”

            “Yep. I’m an excellent driver, right, Johnny?” the Doctor asks with a smile.

            “What?” Johnny says. He thought they’d forgotten he was here.

            “Do you drive yet?” the Doctor asks as they get in the car.

            “No, not yet,” he replies.

            “I should teach you how to drive the TARDIS. If you want. Tried to teach your mum, once. Terrible student,” he tells him with a grin.

            “Or maybe you’re a terrible teacher,” mum replies teasingly.

            “Don’t let her poison you against me.”

            “I won’t,” Johnny says. He can’t help the smile on his face. “Will you really teach me?”

            “Of course.”

            Mum and the Doctor hold hands the whole way there, and Johnny can’t stop smiling, and maybe this dinner will be a disaster but he’s pretty sure that, whatever happens, it’ll all be okay.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm posting the last few chapters right now, so make sure you read chapter 8 first. Again, sorry for the ridiculous delay.

            The Doctor is tense. Johnny doesn’t know him well, but he can tell that he’s tense. Mum’s holding his hand, and she stops before they reach the door and hugs him. Johnny has a feeling they hug a lot, so he figures he ought to get used to it.

            “I love you,” she says.

            “I love you, too.”

            “And I wanna be with you. And I’m not gonna change my mind. So relax, okay?”

            “Okay.”

            He kisses her, then nuzzles his head into her shoulder for a moment before pulling back and taking her hand again.

            “Let’s go see Jackie,” the Doctor says.

            Johnny’d heard mum on the phone earlier, telling her that the Doctor was here, that he’d be coming for dinner, but he’s still not sure what to expect.

            Grandmum Jackie’s the one who answers the door. She takes a long hard look at the Doctor.

            “Hello, Jackie,” he says. She slaps him.

            “Mum!”

            “No, it’s all right, Rose—”

            “That’s for not being here,” grandmum Jackie says.

            “Mum—”

            But then—in a move that surprises all of them—grandmum Jackie hugs the Doctor.

            “What was that for?” the Doctor asks when she releases him, rubbing at his cheek.

            “For coming back.”

            Johnny’s heart sinks because he knows they’re leaving but ­ _she_ doesn’t and—and—

            She hugs him then, too.

            “Hello, sweetheart. How’s school?”

            “Hi, grandmum. It’s good.”

            “Good. I’ve made shepherd’s pie,” she says, hugging Rose now and ushering them inside.

            “Mickey and Jake are coming by as well,” Rose tells her.

            “Oh?”

            “Yeah. We, um. We need to talk. All of us.”

            Grandmum raises her eyebrows but doesn’t comment, just shuts the door behind them and shouts for granddad.

\---

            Uncle Mickey and uncle Jake arrive as they sit down to eat. Uncle Jake gives Johnny a hug and shakes the Doctor’s hand, but uncle Mickey still looks upset and barely acknowledges anyone. Grandmum grabs two extra plates and so begins the most stilted dinner Johnny’s ever had to endure.

            The Doctor tries, at least, but uncle Mickey is like stone and Grandmum’s picked up that whatever it is they need to talk about is bad, and eventually they fall into silence.

            “All right, spill,” grandmum says once everyone is done eating.

            “What?” granddad says.

            “Rose said there’s something we need to talk about. So, start talking, Doctor.”

            “Mum—”

            “Yeah, Doctor, tell Jackie what’s going on.”

            “What’s going on?”

            “Well, you see—”

            “J, why don’t you go upstairs for a little while,” mum suggests, and he wants to scream.

            “No.”

            “J—”

            “I’m not 5, I wanna stay.”

            “J,” mum starts.

            “John, listen to your mother,” the Doctor says. He’s got the dad voice down, Johnny will give him that, but he’s still not having it.

            “You can’t tell me what to do,” he tells him, the words spilling out without thought.

            “Hear that, Doctor?” uncle Mickey says, and that pisses Johnny off, too.

            “Shut up,” he tells him, and that wipes the smile off uncle Mickey’s face and Johnny feels guilty but mostly he’s angry and tired of being treated like a kid and left in the dark when this involves him just as much as anyone else.

            “John Peter—” mum starts.

            “Someone tell me what the hell’s going on,” grandmum says.

            “Jackie—”

            “J, you need to—”

            “Doctor—”

            “Oi, everyone shut up!” shouts uncle Jake. They all fall silent. “Thank you.”

            Grandmum Jackie looks livid, uncle Mickey’s got his arms crossed in front of him, mum’s angry, granddad Pete’s trying to calm down grandmum, and the Doctor looks ready to bolt. Only uncle Jake looks calm.

            “Rose, let Johnny stay, he’s 15 for Christ’s sake. Johnny, I know you’re frustrated but try to give us a break. Mickey, quit your sulking, we’re trying to be adults here. Jackie, let them talk, try not to interrupt. And Doctor—” uncle Jake pauses. “We’re listening.”

            The Doctor nods.

            “I—so, I’ve been in the other universe. Our original universe. It’s been two years for me, since—well, obviously it’s been quite a bit longer, for you,” the Doctor starts.

            “Two years?” Grandmum Jackie starts.

            “Mum, let him talk.”

            “Well, get on with it, then.”

            “I’m not sure how I got back here, to be honest. Should be impossible—when I—it is, it was, there’s no—but somehow, landed here the other day, and ran into Johnny.”

            The Doctor turns to Johnny then, smiles, and Johnny can’t help but smile back.

            “I don’t know how I got here, but I do know—I can’t stay. The TARDIS—”

            “How long?” Grandmum Jackie asks.

            “Tomorrow. Day after at the latest.”

            It hits Johnny then. He’d known they’d have to leave but—it’s just so soon. Sooner than he’d thought. He’d thought there’d be time to—

            “So that’s it? Pop in for a visit every 15 years?”

            “Mum—”

            “How could you do this to her again? Bad enough the first time, bloody Norway—”

            “It’s not like that, Jackie, I—”

            “And what about John?” Everyone turns to look at him except grandmum Jackie and the Doctor, whose eyes remain locked. “You’re just gonna leave him?”

            “They’re going with him, Jackie,” Mickey says, and you could hear a pin drop, the room gets so quiet.

            “What?”

            “Mum—that’s what—that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The Doctor can’t stay here, but—but we could go with him. We _are_ going with him. J and me.”

            Johnny’s insides are squirming and everything is so tense and maybe he should’ve gone upstairs and let them talk amongst themselves.

            Grandmum Jackie turns back on the Doctor.

            “You’re swanning off with her, again? And how long ‘til I see her again, this time? Two years? Three? How long, for us, until you come back?”

            “We can’t,” the Doctor whispers, and he sounds the way Johnny feels.

            “I’m sorry, thought I heard you say, ‘you can’t,’ but I must be hearing things.”

            “I don’t know how I managed to get through this time but it can’t happen again. Once we leave, there’s no—”

            Silence.

            Grandmum Jackie takes a look at mum and then gets up.

            “Mum—”

            “No, you’ve made your choice, it seems, nothing I can say.”

            “Mum, please—”

            “Make sure you say goodbye before you go. I’d like to get one last look at you and my grandson before you disappear, since I’ll not get another chance,” she says, blinking back tears.

            Johnny’s heart hurts and he feels like crying and uncle Mickey’s getting up, too, and grandmum’s halfway out of the room and mum’s chasing after her and the Doctor’s apologizing and he wants them all to _stop_ and just—

            Uncle Jake’s gone after uncle Mickey to try to get him to come back and granddad Pete’s gone after mum and grandmum Jackie and it’s just the Doctor and Johnny at the table now, and the Doctor looks miserable.

            “Sorry for putting you through this,” he says. Johnny shrugs. No use being angry with him.

            “I just—” and the words are thick with emotion and he doesn’t want to cry, he’s 15, not some little kid, but the Doctor looks at him and the dam breaks and the Doctor pulls him into a hug, letting him cry onto his shoulder.

            “Shh, it’ll be all right,” the Doctor mutters, rubbing his back.

            “No it won’t, uncle Mickey hates me and we’re never gonna see them again, and grandmum—” And words fail him again.

            “He doesn’t hate you. He’s just upset. If he hates anyone it’s me.”

            “I don’t hate you,” Johnny mutters. The Doctor presses a kiss to the top of his head and somehow that makes Johnny cry harder, but for different reasons.

            “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

            And Johnny’s _so_ tired of everyone apologizing. Mum, the Doctor—everyone, his whole life, saying sorry for everything but sorry doesn’t fix anything. Sorry won’t make uncle Mickey less angry, make grandmum less hurt. Sorry won’t make the Doctor able to stay.

            “Why can’t they come with us?” Johnny asks, sniffling. He pulls away, wiping his eyes, trying to get his emotions under control.

            “What?”

            “Why can’t they just come with us, to the other world? Wouldn’t that just—”

            But he doesn’t get to answer because the Doctor jumps up and pulls Johnny up, too, hugs him so tight he almost can’t breathe, lifting him up off the floor.

            “Johnny Tyler, you are _brilliant_ ,” he exclaims, releasing him and setting him down. Johnny’s confused.

            “What?”

            “That’s just it! There’s plenty of room in the TARDIS, we can all go—why didn’t I think of it? We can go, get them set up in the other universe, and then go and visit every, oh, few months or so.”

            “Really?”

            “If they want. Oh, I’m so _stupid_ , why didn’t I think of it—lucky I’ve got you, now,” he says, and Johnny’s heart is swelling with something like hope and _love_ and—

            “Rose! Jackie! Everyone, come back! We’ve got an idea!” the Doctor shouts, and he’s all manic energy and bright smiles and it’s infectious, now Johnny’s grinning, too, looking up at the Doctor who is his _dad_ who _wants_ them, who can take them, all of them, with him, who—

            “Rose!” he shouts again, and uncle Mickey and uncle Jake wander in and uncle Mickey’s still scowling and then mum and grandmum Jackie and granddad Pete come in and they’re crying and the Doctor rushes over to them, swoops mum up in a hug, kissing her on the cheek. “No more tears, Rose Tyler, you’ve nothing to be upset about anymore, I’ve figured it out—actually Johnny figured it out, brilliant, our son is, he’s—”

            “What are you yammering on about?” grandmum asks, and the Doctor lets mum go and gives grandmum a hug now. She hits him.

            “You can come with us. All of you, if you want. We’ll all go, back to the other universe. Get you set up with jobs and houses and we can come visit, Rose and Johnny and I, whenever we want.”

            “Really?” mum asks, starting to smile. The Doctor nods, grinning.

            “It’s so simple, so obvious, dunno how we didn’t see it, but it’s perfect. You can _all_ come, even you, Mickey. And Jake.”

            Johnny turns to uncle Mickey. He’s still got his arms crossed but he’s not scowling anymore.

            “What do you say?” the Doctor asks. Uncle Mickey shrugs.

            “I’ll think about it.”

            “Please,” Johnny says without thinking. All eyes are on him now. He reddens a bit. “I want you to come.”

            “Yeah?”

            Johnny nods. Uncle Jake nudges uncle Mickey.

            “Stop being an asshole, Mick.”

            Uncle Mickey looks chastened.

            “Yeah, I’ll go,” he says, and Johnny launches himself at him, and uncle Mickey hugs him back.

            “I’m sorry,” Johnny mutters.

            “It’s okay. Jake’s right, I was being a git.”

            Uncle Mickey releases him, and he’s smiling again, and all the tension in Johnny’s stomach disappears.

            “I’m going, Pete, are you?” grandmum Jackie says to granddad Pete. He smiles and puts an arm around her.

            “Of course. Gotta get some stuff taken care of first, but—”

            “We’ll leave day after tomorrow, how’s that?” the Doctor asks. Everyone nods. “Brilliant!”

            “Should get going, though,” uncle Mickey says. Uncle Jake agrees. They say goodbye, and mum and grandmum hug and cry a bit more, and then they’re leaving as well. Grandmum hugs him extra tight when they go.

            “See you soon,” he tells her, and she smiles at him.

            “Yeah.”

            Mum and the Doctor hold hands on the way to the car again. Johnny gets in as soon as they reach it, and the Doctor opens mum’s door for her but she hugs him before getting inside. She must mumble something to him because the Doctor mumbles something, and Johnny can’t quite make out the words but they hug a bit longer and then she kisses him before getting in the car.

            “You okay, J?” she asks, turning in her seat to look at him.

            “Yeah. I am,” he replies. She smiles, and the Doctor gets in the car and grins at her, taking her hand, and Johnny feels happy. Peaceful.

            Like this is something he could get used to.

\---

            The Doctor walks them to their flat and says goodnight, giving Johnny a hug before going, and mum walks him out. (Probably so they can kiss some more or something.)

            He’s getting into bed when he hears the front door, and a few moments later there’s a knock at his door.

            “Come in,” he says, and mum walks in.

            “Hi. Can we talk, or are you too tired?”

            “I can talk,” he answers, and she sits on the edge of his bed.

            “So, how are you feeling?”

            He shrugs. “Better, now.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah. I wasn’t—I didn’t like it when uncle Mickey was upset.”

            “I didn’t, either.”

            “Or grandmum.”

            “Yeah.”

            “But I’m glad they’re coming with us.”

            “Me, too,” mum says. She reaches over, brushes his hair out of his face. “I feel like I keep apologizing to you, but I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all this lately.”

            “It’s okay.”

            “No it’s not.”

            Pause. She’s right. But he doesn’t want to be upset with her.

            “Is it weird, seeing me with him?”

            “A little bit,” he replies. “But it’s sort of nice, too.”

            “Yeah?”

            He nods.

            “You’re happy.”

            Her eyes soften, get sadder.

            “I don’t want you to think I haven’t been, J. Yes, I love the Doctor and yes, I’m glad he’s back but I haven’t been miserable, either. I love you, and I still love you, and I don’t want you to feel out of place or anything. You come first.”

            He nods. “I know. But I’m glad you’re happy with him.”

            She pulls him in for a hug, and he lets himself feel like a little kid again, lets her hold him.

            “It’s going to be different now, you know. Won’t just be us anymore.”

            “Yeah.”

            “But you can always talk to me. And if you’re ever feeling—whatever you’re feeling. Come find me. I mean it, J. You’re the most important man in my life. Having the Doctor in the picture again doesn’t change that.”

            He nods again. He knows, but still. It helps to hear her say it.

            “Love you, mum.”

            She hugs him tighter. “Love you, too, sweetheart. So much.”

            She kisses him on the forehead and tucks him in, and normally he’d protest because he’s not a baby anymore but tonight he lets her. Sometimes it’s nice to let mum take care of him like she did when he was younger. And having the Doctor around—dealing with all this dad stuff—makes him feel 6 years old again, wishing he had a dad to teach him the constellations.

            “Night, J. Love you,” mum says as she turns out the light and leaves his room.

            “Love you, too, mum.”

            He falls asleep.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Then an epilogue. So technically not the last chapter. Depends on your view on epilogues. Anyway.

            It’s surprisingly not very hard to say goodbye to his friends at school. Mostly because he doesn’t have any.

            Mum called work early and told them she was resigning. She sent Johnny to school (it’s your last day, you’ll be all right) and stayed at the flat to pack up. The Doctor arrived as Johnny was leaving. He’d offered to walk Johnny to school but Johnny declined and left as the Doctor swept his mum up and kissed her. He wondered if he’d ever get used to that.

            As he’s leaving school, though, after letting his teachers know he’s moving away and it’s his last day, he sees Michael T. He’s not sure why he does it, but he runs to catch up with him.

            “Michael.”

            “Tyler. What’s up?” Michael says as Johnny falls into step with him.

            “I’m moving,” he tells him. Michael stops.

            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Going with your dad, then?”

            Johnny nods.

            “Glad it worked out.”

            “Yeah.”

            Michael smiles at him, and Johnny looks to see if there’s anyone around watching them, and since there isn’t, he leans in and kisses him. Just a quick peck, but he can feel his ears redden all the same. It occurs to him that he should be afraid, maybe, that Michael will hit him or something, but he knows somehow that that won’t happen.

            Michael smirks and kisses him back, a little longer this time.

            “Have a good life, Tyler.”

            “Yeah, you, too.”

\---

            He gets home and mum and the Doctor are in the kitchen with Donna and they spend the evening packing and they’re leaving tomorrow, forever, and he wonders when it’ll sink in for real.

\---

            He’s pulling the stars off the walls when there’s a knock at the door.

            “Come in?”

            He’s assuming it’ll be mum but it’s the Doctor who steps in.

            “Hi,” he says.

            “Hello,” Johnny answers. He’s standing on his bed, stars in one hand and sticky adhesive in the other.

            “I’m going now, just wanted to say bye.”

            “Oh, okay.”

            “So, good night.”

            “Night.”

            “See you in the morning?”

            “Yeah.”

            The Doctor’s got his hands shoved in his coat pockets, shoulders tense, and Johnny’s not sure what to do with his hands, either. He wonders if it’ll always be awkward like this.

            “You’re taking these all down, then?” the Doctor asks.

            “Yeah. Figure, makes it easier for the next lot that lives here.”

            “Right, yeah.” He nods. “Looks cool, though. You do this all yourself?”

            “Yeah. I like stars.”

            “Me, too.”

            This time Johnny nods.

            “Well, um. I should let you get back to it. I’m gonna go. But, see you tomorrow.”

            “See you tomorrow, Doctor.”

            Johnny smiles, and it feels tight, and the Doctor smiles back and it’s about the same.

            He used to wonder, when he was younger, what it’d be like if mum started dating. Beyond just what it’d be like to see mum with a bloke, he’d wonder how any potential boyfriend would treat _him_. Would he take him to see a film, or to the park? Would he try to get to know Johnny, or would he only be around for mum? He always figured it’d be awkward and maybe a little tense, because they’d be strangers who only knew each other through Johnny’s mum.

            With the Doctor, it’s sort of like that. It’s like he’s just some bloke she’s seeing now, and he and Johnny have to figure out how to exist together, relate to each other. Get to know one another. Because they both love Rose, and she loves both of them, and they’re gonna be around each other forever, now. But it’s different, too, because the Doctor’s _not_ just some random bloke mum’s seeing, the Doctor is his _dad_. So there’s more—there’s a sort of pressure there, an expectation. If mum dated and he and the boyfriend weren’t all that close, it’d make sense, or it’d be okay. But it’s his dad, and he wants to be close to him like you are with your dad. But he doesn’t know how. And clearly the Doctor doesn’t, either.

            But he’s still standing in the doorway and he’s _trying_.

            “Do you want to—I mean, I know you were gonna go, but—do you wanna help me? Take the stars down?” Johnny asks, bracing himself for rejection. He can try, too.

            “Yeah! Of course,” the Doctor says, nodding, smile breaking out. Johnny smiles, too.

            “Cool. So, um, I’ll keep with the ceiling but—”

            “Want me to start on this wall?” the Doctor asks, shrugging off his jacket and draping it on Johnny’s desk chair.

            “Yeah, sure.”

            So he does, and after a few minutes they start talking. About nothing in particular, and then the Doctor starts asking him about the constellations he put up, and Johnny answers, and the Doctor tells him stories and rambles for a bit, yes, but it’s—it’s nice.

            After they’ve removed all the stars from the walls, the Doctor puts his coat back on.

            “Thanks, for helping,” Johnny says, suddenly feeling shy again.

            “Yeah, of course. Glad I could help.”

            The Doctor puts the stars in his hand on the desk, and takes the ball of leftover adhesive from Johnny, probably to throw it away on his way out.

            “You’ll get to pick out your room, you know. Tomorrow.”

            “Cool.”

            “It’s—um, the TARDIS—sort of, customizes it. To you. So. But, if you wanted to put up stars like this, again, you know, you could.”

            Johnny nods. “Sounds cool.”

            Maybe he’ll even show him the book Uncle Mickey gave him.

            “And, if you want, I could help you with it.”

            Johnny smiles, his heart swelling. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

            The Doctor grins. “Brilliant! Well, I’ll just—I’ll go now, let you get to bed.”

            “Okay. Bye, Doctor.”

            He’s debating giving him a hug when the Doctor steps closer and hugs him.

            “Good night,” the Doctor says, and Johnny smiles again, hugging him back.

            “Night.”

            The Doctor leaves this time, shutting the door behind him.

            It feels like a start.

\---

            To nobody’s surprise except Johnny’s, Uncle Jake’s not going with them.

            “What do you mean you’re staying?” Johnny asks. Granddad Pete and Grandmum Jackie and Uncle Mickey are carrying bags into the TARDIS, and when Uncle Jake arrived with nothing, mum broke the news to him.

            “This is my home,” Uncle Jake replies.

            “But—”

            “Your mum, Mickey, Jackie—they’re all from the other universe, where you’re going. I’m from here, I’ve got family and—”

            “But _we’re_ your family, too,” Johnny says. Uncle Jake sighs.

            “I know you are. But someone’s got to take over Torchwood. Tie up loose ends.” He hugs Johnny then, and Johnny’s almost too angry to let him but he’s never going to see Uncle Jake after this so instead he hugs him back and tries not to cry.

            Uncle Mickey was always more the father figure—made sense, as he and Johnny’s mum had been friends all their lives. But Uncle Jake was still—he still—

            “I’m gonna miss you, Uncle Jake,” Johnny mutters.

            “I’m gonna miss you, too, kid.”

            And it hurts, saying goodbye. Watching mum and everyone say goodbye. Donna looks sympathetic and Johnny can’t read the look on the Doctor’s face.

            He looks around, takes a deep breath. He wonders if the air will feel different in the other universe. The sky. He wonders if there will still be zeppelins and Manchester United, chips and tea and banana nut muffins.

            After they’ve all said good bye to Uncle Jake, the Doctor takes mum’s hand.

            “Ready?”

            And he’s asking for confirmation, Johnny can tell, he’s asking if she’s sure, if they’re sure, if they’re really doing this.

            “Ready,” she says, and Johnny lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Donna, Uncle Mickey, Grandmum Jackie and Granddad Pete all go inside. Johnny turns back to Uncle Jake one last time.

            “Love you, kid. Be good.”

            “Love you, too, Uncle Jake.” He smiles and he _won’t_ cry, he won’t. “Good bye.”

            He walks into the TARDIS.

\---

            It’s bigger on the inside, which he’d figured had to be true. Tiny blue box like that, how could it have bedrooms and such, fit so many people? But it’s still a bit of a shock, just how much bigger on the inside it is.

            What’s strange, too, is the sort of—feels like a tickle or something in his head. Something soothing and warm spreading through his mind as soon as he walks in. He turns to the Doctor to ask and finds him looking at him, smiling.

            “It’s the TARDIS.”

            “In my head?”

            “Yep. Not just a ship, you know, she’s—I’ve got a connection with her, and since you’re—well, you’ve got one, too.”

            It’s a bit overwhelming, but it’s not unpleasant, the sort of humming in his head, but the Doctor must sense his alarm because he pats his shoulder and tells him he’ll explain it all a bit later. Johnny nods.

            But it’s cool, too, to have this tangible—this real evidence that the Doctor’s his dad. That he’s like him in more than just looks. The Doctor’s got a connection with his time ship, and Johnny does, too. It’s not that he’d needed—or wanted—proof or anything, but it’s nice all the same.

\---

            Later—after they’ve left the world Johnny grew up in (that mum and the Doctor call ‘Pete’s world’), after they’ve crossed over into the original universe, after they’ve landed in Cardiff for the TARDIS to recharge and for the Doctor to make repairs—Johnny wanders the halls and looks for his new room. He’s not sure if he’s supposed to just open up random doors and pick one or if he’ll suddenly come across one with his name or something, ‘Johnny’s room’ in block letters like he’s 10 years old still.

            Grandmum and Granddad went out for a walk, to think about where they want to live now, and Uncle Mickey’s gone for a walk as well. Mum and the Doctor and Donna were in the kitchen, but Johnny decided to go explore.

            He comes across one door, and it’s not special in any way, doesn’t have his name on it, but he opens it all the same, and immediately knows that this is his room.

            Looks a lot like his old room, except a bit different. Bigger, for starters, lacking most of the books and things he’d packed to bring with him. But it feels comfortable, and like home, and he’s not sure how this connection thing works but he thinks thankful thoughts and hopes the TARDIS understands.

            He sets his backpack on the bed (the boxes are still in the console room, but he figures he can get to those later) and pulls out the book of stars Uncle Mickey gave him. He starts flipping through it when he senses a presence at the door. He looks up and the Doctor’s there.

            “Hello,” Johnny says with a smile.

            “Hello. Found your room, then?”

            “Yeah.”

            The Doctor nods.

            “Good, I’m glad. Like it?”

            “Yeah.”

            Pause.

            “D’you want to come in?” Johnny asks. The Doctor nods and steps in.

            “What are you reading?”

            “This book Uncle Mickey gave me, few years back. It’s all about constellations, yeah?”

            The Doctor sits down beside him on the bed, looks at the page Johnny’s on.

            “Oh, this is lovely,” he says. Johnny smiles and hands over the book, and the Doctor takes it and begins flipping through. “Think you’ll put them up in here as well?”

            Johnny shrugs. “Dunno. Back home, I’d had ‘em since I was little. Bit too old now, right?”

            “Well, I wouldn’t say that. Are you ever too old for something that makes you happy?”

            Johnny shrugs again.

            “If you want stars on the ceiling, then I say put stars on the ceiling. But if you feel like you’re too old for it, then we’ll find something else to decorate your room with. Something befitting a man of your age.”

            Johnny grins. The Doctor hands the book back to Johnny, gets up and crosses to the desk, opens a drawer and pulls out several packs of glow-in-the-dark stars like Johnny used to have in his old room. He tosses a pack at Johnny.

            “In case you change your mind,” he says. He smiles again and heads for the door.

            “Wait.”

            The Doctor stops.

            “I suppose a few wouldn’t hurt. Right?”

            “Right.”

            He looks down at the stars in his hand, suddenly unsure again. “D’you—did you still want to help?”

            “If you want me to.”

            “Yeah, I do.”

            They both just stand there, nodding at each other, and it’s a little ridiculous, and they seem to realize it at the same time because they both start laughing.

            The awkwardness fades out of the room after that, and they start putting up the glow in the dark stars, talking at first about placement and constellations but then moving onto other topics.

            The Doctor asks Johnny a lot of questions—about what books he likes, his favorite subjects in school, his favorite color, favorite food—and after a while Johnny starts asking the Doctor questions, too.

            At one point mum comes by with a tray of sandwiches and Johnny realizes it must be lunch time.

            “Thanks, mum,” Johnny says at the same time the Doctor says, “Thanks, Rose.”

            She just smiles and sets the tray on his desk.

            “You all right?” the Doctor asks her, giving her a quick kiss and putting his arm around her waist.

            “Yeah, just been chatting with Donna,” she replies with a smile.

            Johnny gets off his bed and picks up a sandwich. Peanut butter and banana. His favorite. The Doctor picks one up, too.

            “How’s it going in here?” she asks Johnny. He nods, mouth full of sandwich.

            “Fantastic,” he says before he takes another bite. She smiles, and it’s not sad, and that makes him happy. The Doctor offers her his sandwich but she shakes her head, and Johnny grabs another one.

            “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then,” mum says after a moment. She and the Doctor share a look as she goes. “And be careful.”

            “I will,” Johnny says, resisting the urge to rolls his eyes.

            She pauses in the door a moment, watching them (Johnny can’t imagine why, they’re just eating sandwiches) before disappearing down the hall.

            “You know,” the Doctor says, grabbing another sandwich off the tray, “before you go to bed we ought to get some torches. Shine them on the stars, so they glow extra bright once the lights go out. What do you say?”

            He might not be ready to call the Doctor ‘dad,’ but he has a feeling they’ll get there. And maybe everything’s different, and maybe it’s fully sunk in yet how much everything’s changed, but he’s got mum and Uncle Mickey and Grandmum Jackie and Granddad Pete and the Donna and the Doctor. He grins.

            “Brilliant.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue! Thanks for reading and reviewing and badgering me to update this.

**Epilogue**

 

            It’s been two weeks. Two weeks since they left Pete’s world, two weeks since they got Jackie and Pete and Mickey set up in London, two weeks since Donna had gone home for a visit with her family while the Doctor and Rose and Johnny got settled in together. Two weeks.

            He’s been planning this for nearly as long, and yes, he could’ve easily done this a few days in, but he’d wanted to wait. He’d wanted it to be perfect.

            He was also a coward.

            It’s been going well, though. Things with Rose are—well, it’s almost like she never left. Which, for him, is nearly true. He’d gone two years without—two long, hellish years without her—but she’d gone fifteen without him. Sometimes she still looks at him like he’s going to fade away, so he makes sure to hug her extra close, to kiss her reassuringly, in those moments.

            “I’m not going anywhere,” he tells her, and she always smiles and says, “I know.”

            The first night they hadn’t really said much; hadn’t really talked. Everyone had retired to their rooms, and Rose went to go check on Johnny one last time, and then she’d come to his room—their room—and it was like before, and they didn’t need any words, it was just him and her and he’d _missed_ her and she was _here_ , and it was like coming home.

            The next night they’d climbed into bed and he’d just held her, and the silence hadn’t been uncomfortable so much as full.

            “I’m sorry,” he’d said, and he’d said it a lot since getting her back, but he had a feeling he’d be saying it for the rest of their lives.

            “Not your fault,” she’d replied, as she always did. “Just glad you’re here.”

            “I’m glad you’re here, too.”

            “I love you.”

            “I love you, Rose Tyler.”

            (And it’s funny to him that he used to not say it, used to be afraid of saying it. Now he’s afraid he doesn’t say it enough.)

            She’d snuggled into his chest, and he’d kissed the top of her head, and he was happy, so happy to have her back, and Johnny—but Johnny—

            And she must’ve sensed the change.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Doctor.”

            He’d sighed.

            “I just—with Johnny.”

            “What about him?”

            “I don’t know how to do this,” he’d admitted. “He’s just—I’ve missed so much. With kids, it’s like you learn how to—how to be their parent as they get older, but I missed everything and now he’s 15 and I dunno how to—”

            And he wants, so much, for them to have a relationship. He _wants_ Johnny to call him dad, he wants him to come looking for him just to talk, he wants to teach him how to drive the TARDIS and how to drive a car, wants to take him places and show him things and teach him, but that’s—

            “Doctor,” Rose had said, pulling him from his thoughts.

            “I feel like I’ve already mucked it up.”

            Because he sees how hesitant Johnny is still. How he keeps him at arm’s length—and he doesn’t begrudge him that, he has every reason to—but it still hurts.

            “But it seems like things have been going well.”

            “They have, but. Still.”

            She’d kissed him, then.

            “Just spend time with him. Talk to him. He wants this just as much as you do.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Of course.”

\---

            At first he’d thought of maybe just having a talk with him. Putting his cards on the table. But he’s not great at communicating, and he knows it, and he’s afraid he might mess it up somehow.

            They’d made some progress, though. He’d helped Johnny put up stars in his room. They’d talked then, and it had been easy, almost. And they’d shone torches at them and turned out the lights to see how they glowed, and the Doctor had felt this twinge in his hearts because he wondered what Johnny had been like as a baby, as a toddler, what sort of 6 year old he’d been.

            But he follows Rose’s advice and tries to seek Johnny out as much as possible. Asks him questions, tries to learn about him. Makes him breakfast one morning. Cooks dinner for the three of them one night. Recommends a book he thinks he might like.

            He’s trying, and Johnny’s responding, at least, but he still hasn’t called him anything other than Doctor, and he understands, he does, but—

            He wants to be Johnny’s _dad_ , not just the man his mum’s with.

\---

            The idea comes to him a few days after they’ve moved in. He tells Rose about it that night, but decides to wait to execute it. She just smiles and kisses him, and tells him she thinks it sounds like a wonderful idea.

            It’s been two weeks, now. Two weeks of getting to know Johnny, of living with him and Rose in the TARDIS, of settling into some sort of routine, of feeling out the idea of family. They’d both gone to bed a few hours ago, but the Doctor had stayed up. (He didn’t need much sleep, anyway, a trait Johnny _hadn’t_ inherited.)

            Now he’s pouring the hot cocoa into mugs and topping them off with whipped cream. (Johnny likes whipped cream with his hot cocoa, not marshmallows.) After depositing the tray in the console room, he heads to Johnny’s room.

            He knows that he could’ve easily done this hours ago, that he didn’t need to wait until Johnny had fallen asleep, but this feels like the way it should be. This is what dads do, isn’t it? Wake up their kids to show them something they’ll enjoy. If they were still on earth—if he’d had the chance to raise Johnny with Rose, in a house with carpets and a mortgage—this is how it would’ve been. The Doctor staying up and making cocoa and waking Johnny, because stars are only out at night on earth.

            It feels like the sort of tradition he would’ve started with him, if he’d had the chance, and it seems only right to do it this way. Even if it means waking him up in the middle of the night.

            So he carefully opens the door to Johnny’s room, steps inside, and shakes him awake.

            “Johnny,” he says softly. “Johnny, wake up.”

            He sits up, blinking.

            “Wha’? Everything okay?” he asks, rubbing his eyes.

            “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

            “What time is it?”

            “I wanna show you something,” the Doctor says instead, motioning to the door. Johnny nods, eyes still heavy with sleep, and the urge to smooth down his hair and kiss his forehead and tuck him back into bed is strong. These paternal feelings come up often, but always at the most random moments. It still surprises him how much he loves him, considering he’s only known about him for a little over two weeks. But Johnny isn’t just anyone, he’s his son, his and Rose’s, and he never expected this but he’s so glad for it all the same. He wishes, not for the first time, that he could’ve been there as Johnny was growing up.

            Johnny stands and tugs his blanket with him, draping it around himself and following the Doctor out of the room.

            The Doctor had opened the TARDIS doors before going to get Johnny, and he hears Johnny gasp behind him once they reach the console room.

            “Is that—”

            “Yep.”

            _Space_. The final frontier. Just outside. Johnny steps closer, and the look on his face is pure unadulterated awe. He’s never looked so young.

            “Is it real?”

            “Yep. We’re just floating through space. Thought you might like to see it.”

            The Doctor grabs the mugs of cocoa—cool enough to drink, now—and sits in the doorway. He pats the space next to him. “Want to sit?”

            Johnny doesn’t answer, just plops down beside him, hair mussed from sleep, eyes wide, blanket draped over his shoulders. He accepts the mug without a word and just stares for a bit.

            “When I was ‘bout 5 I told mum I wanted to go to the stars,” Johnny says after a moment. He takes a sip of his cocoa.

            “Really?”

            Johnny nods, not looking at him.

            “Always thought—I dunno. Thought you might know about all this. Space and stuff.” He shrugs. “Think I wanted to be like you, even if I didn’t know what it meant.”

            The Doctor’s hearts are swelling or bursting and he half feels like crying and this is his _son_ , half him and half Rose and perfect and wonderful and he can’t believed he missed so much.

            He knows he should say something—there are so many things he wants to say—but he can’t think of anything. He drinks his cocoa and wills the words to form on his tongue.

            “What’s—what’s that?” Johnny asks.

            “That is Stephan’s Quintet,” the Doctor tells him. “Five galaxies in the constellation Pegasus. Four of those galaxies form the first compact galaxy group ever to be discovered on Earth.”

            “Why’s it called Stephan’s Quintet? He discover it or something?”

            “Yep. 1877, Marseilles, Edouard Stephan.”

            “What else do you know about it?”

            The Doctor grins to himself and launches into a discussion on intergalactic shock waves and molecular hydrogen emission and redshift. Johnny nods and asks questions but never looks away from the sight in front of him.

            He trails off and looks at Johnny. They’ve both finished their cocoa, but Johnny’s still holding his mug. The Doctor takes it from him, noticing how his eyes are beginning to droop.

            “Tired?”

            “A bit,” Johnny says. He yawns then, and the Doctor chuckles.

            “Come on, back to bed. We can look at this more tomorrow.”

            “Yeah?”

            He nods, standing and helping Johnny to his feet. Johnny wraps his blanket tighter around himself and steps away from the doorway as the Doctor closes the doors. He yawns again. The Doctor puts his arm around him and Johnny rests his head on his shoulder, eyes sliding shut. It doesn’t take long to reach Johnny’s room, and the Doctor helps him climb into bed. Johnny hugs his pillow tightly, and the Doctor fixes his blankets around him. This time he does smooth down his hair and kiss his forehead.

            “Good night, Johnny,” he whispers.

            “Night, dad.”

            He swears his hearts stop.

            “See you in the morning,” Johnny continues, eyes still closed, voice still heavy with sleep. The Doctor smiles.

            “Yeah. See you.”

            He quietly leaves the room, shutting the door behind him, and makes his way to his room. Rose is asleep and as much as he wants to wake her and tell her what just happened, he doesn’t. He just changes into his pajamas and slides into bed behind her, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck.

            She stirs slightly.

            “Doctor?”

            “Shh, go back to sleep,” he whispers.

            “How’d it go?”

            He grins.

            “It was good.”

            “Good, I’m glad.”

            He pauses.

            “He called me dad,” he tells her. She shifts in his arms, turns to face him, smiling.

            “Yeah?”

            He nods. She kisses him, softly.

            “I love you,” she mumbles.

            “Love you, too.”

            He falls asleep smiling.

\---

            When he wakes up he has a brief moment of panic that maybe it was just a one off thing, a product of extreme drowsiness.

            He tells Rose this and she hugs him and tells him not to worry. He’s trying, and she sees it and she knows Johnny does, too, and whether he calls him ‘dad’ or not doesn’t change the progress they’ve made.

            So he tries not to worry about it and goes with Rose to the kitchen. He decides to make pancakes, and he’s putting a stack on the table when Johnny comes in, blanket wrapped around him, smiling sleepily.

            “Morning,” he mumbles as he sits down.

            “Morning,” Rose says. “Sleep well?”

            He nods, putting a few pancakes on his plate.

            “Want some milk?” the Doctor asks. Johnny nods as he smothers his pancakes in syrup. The Doctor smiles and pours him a glass, setting it in front of him as he sits down.

            “Thanks, dad.”

            Rose’s eyes meet his, and she smiles.

            It feels like a beginning.


End file.
